The avalanche danger will be rising as the day progresses and the storm unfolds. Winds are already a factor as they have plenty of snow to work with, forming fresh drifts that'll be sensitive to the additional weight of a rider. That's a manageable avalanche dragon, because those slides break at or below our skis, board, or sled. But don't get tricked into thinking we're just dealing with manageable avalanches today, because It's what's going on near the ground around the old October snow that's more concerning.
So here's the story- for the first time in a couple of seasons we actually have a bit of structure in our snowpack and it's not just a big pile of sugary snow... that's the good news. The bad news is... there are two distinct weaknesses in the snowpack, but they're strong enough to allow snow to stack up and form a slab. That combination can give us a false sense of snow stability, because the snow with feel solid, luring us deeper into the avalanche dragons den. All we need to do is find a weakness, collapse the slope, and now we're staring down the barrel of a dangerous slide that going to work us as we get dragged through rocks and stumps barely hidden under our relatively shallow snow cover. This setup is most prevalent on mid and upper elevation slopes facing the north half of the compass, especially in terrain that's steep and rocky. The best way to combat this situation is to simply avoid slopes with these characteristics and play on low angle terrain or shred slopes facing the south half of the compass.
Thanks to JG for this great snowpit illustration from Weber Canyon.
Not much has changed with the basic snowpack structure since earlier in the week. Click here for a quick viddy explaining the setup.