The last four days I've spent quite a bit of time looking at snow in the problem aspects (E through NW) at the 8500-10000' elevations. Multiple days in Grizzly and Silver Fork and a short trip into No Name as well. Clearly there's some weak snow out there with slabs sitting on top. The early January near surface facets that got covered by the rime crust (1/8) and then snow (1/10) seems to be the most reactive. In some places I have seen propagating collapses and ECTP Q1 results. But there are also some places where those facets simply are not there. (There are also some places where the facets are there but seem not to be reactive- as far as I'm concerned that's Russian Roulette.)

The difficulty is this: how do you identify the distribution of the buried NSF and confirm that they are not on a slope without exposing yourself to the hazard when several of the slides that have occurred have propagated above the skier that triggered them, and triggered on slopes that have been previously skied, not to mention several remote and (I believe) sympathetic slides as well as shallower instability that appears to have stepped down to the deeper angrier weak layer. And despite all the unintentional triggers I can't seem to intentionally trigger anything. Ugh. I think right now, careful slope specific investigation is what it'll take to get me skiing avalanche terrain in the (aspect an elevation) trouble band- which unfortunately is not possible on many slopes.