New Snow

The only avalanche problem is the same one we've had all week--the new snow collapsing onto the weak, depth hoar near the ground. The depth hoar is composed of the October snow that became very faceted before the big snowstorm about 6 days ago. After widespread, human triggered avalanche activity during and just after the storm, the buried weak layer continues to slowly gain strength. We did about a dozen extended column tests today on northeast facing slopes from 9,500' to 10,200' and they all continued to propagate fractures but they were quite variable in how hard you had to tap the column to make it initiate and propagate a fracture. Tests ranged from ECTP- 5 to 25, with the median in the upper teens to lower 20's, meaning from medium hand taps to hard, full-arm taps. In other words, the weak layer is gaining strength but doing so slowly and it's quite variable from place to place. But all the tests definitely propagated fractures, which mean that people can still trigger avalanches in the right spot. The bottom line is that we continued to avoid slopes steeper than 30 degrees that face northwest, north and northeast, above 9,500'. The avalanche danger is moderate but only because the avalanches are more difficult to trigger, but if you do trigger one, they will be 2 feet deep and they will slide right on the ground, giving the victim a nasty ride through rocks and stumps. I'm still not messing with them. I will try to add a video later.