Everywhere we skied today, your ski pole would consistently sink through the soft surface slab and suddenly fall into the airy depth hoar. This slabby feel continues to be nerve-wracking because its a constant reminder of what monsters lurk in the basement. Stepping off the skis you would instantly sink to the ground and trailbreaking in the thinner snowpack areas, you would sink to the ground.
Our snowpit tests consistently showed a poor snowpack structure with columns either difficult to isolate or they would collapse easily with wrist taps or elbow taps. The Extended Column tests showed propagation with medium taps on clean shears. There was less collapsing than I was expecting with this sketchy snowpack but some of our party members felt some large ones. Needless to say, we stayed off the steep terrain but we occasionally jumped on small test slopes and rollovers with low consequences just to see if they would respond.
The added weight of graupel today will exacerbate the problem and keep this layer active. Expect more avalanches triggered in the backcountry tomorrow. Of course the problem exists, as we have been saying forever it seems, on the slopes that face the north half of the compass plus east facing slopes. Keep slope steepness under about 33 degrees including locally connected terrain.
