Now... here's what's going on. You remember the midwinter drought of January and February? You're thinking, hmmm... vaguely. Well, while we might forget what we had for lunch yesterday (tofu, spinach, kale salad :), the snowpack has an amazing memory and stores each weather event in its hard drive. And, those prolonged dry mid winter months created a persistent weak layer (PWL) of extremely fragile, sugary facets on the snow surface which were buried by very low density snow from two weeks ago. Despite nearly record breaking heat last week, the sugary layer remains cold, dry, and weak. This combo is found on mid and upper elevation slopes facing the north half of the compass along with a sliver of southeast facing terrain. This is our new problem child, especially where a cohesive slab rests on top. Mark commented... "To be honest, it's hard to believe how dry and weak this layer is until you see it and feel it with your own hands."

Here's where it gets tricky... large swaths of upper elevation terrain facing the north half of the compass were blasted by the winds prior to our recent storms and weak snow distribution is spotty at best. That means you'll need to evaluate each slope on an individual basis.