high variability in density, it goes without saying, given the sizeable avalanche we triggered today (see Craig and Trents ob), things would change within 10' as you approach the more exposed terrain. One minute it was punchy 4 finger new snow, quickly changing to 1 finger hard wind slab as you approached suspicious terrain. On our first approach this morning the machines would punch through the new snow and try to auger into the sandbox faceted snow near the ground, trail breaking was a little better if the older crust would support you but if you got near trees or logs, we were punching through on skis in a "wallowfest" (Craigs term).

New snow has added load to persistent slabs, we did not experience any collapses until we approached the more exposed terrain. Things just seemed to escalate quickly, first a change in the snow to a stiffer state, then quickly after that the only collapse we felt, then approaching the Little Meadow bowl, we triggered it remotely.

Our discussions today at first noted that we did not yet had a widespread slab, but that quickly changed as we got more into the increasing winds. With very low visiblility, and our remote release of a slab, we retreated lower elevation and sheltered terrain, with no other activity noted in that area.