Today was a great day to focus on low angle terrain and ski some great snow! Initially when cutting in my skin track I was surprised in the density of the new snow, I expected to be slogging through bottomless powder but my skis were able to compress the upper layer of the new snow. My optimism was short lived as I had chosen to hang in the trees today, and the tree wells were a major obstacle. When nearing the trees the snow failed to support skis and one accidental ejection from my bindings on the way up caused me to quickly sink hip deep into the faceted layer.
I dug a pit and did two compression tests. Thought my first was a little heavy handed and scored CT11, SC @ 50cm. Did another and scored CT14, SC @ 50cm. Both failed on the top of the dry January layer. Going into the compression tests my guess was that the columns would be more sensitive than they were.
Collapsing was widespread and easily triggered. Any additional load on the snow would trigger a booming collapse. Cutting in the skin track resulted in some light local collapses that I even second guessed, the second lap up the skin track the collapsing was undeniable. Some of them even shook the snow off some of the nearby trees. Progressively occurring collapsing is the kind of situation that makes me think that false security is something to really keep an eye out for. The first skier/sledder may be lucky to not trigger a slide but the following will have a much higher chance of a significant release.
