All the elements were in place for avalanches today, an upside down snow pack with light density snow underlying dense slabby snow, wind and heavy snowfall. Right when I got on the snow today it was obvious that collapsing of the snow pack was inevitable and avalanches were probable. Went to one of my favorite test slopes in Mill D, N facing, protected and at 8200ft in elevation, one step out onto the slope and the whole thing loudly collapsed and fractured moving only a foot or so but spider webbing the whole slope and leaving a 2 foot crown at the fracture point. Lately I've been thinking that the whole buried surface hoar problem was a conspiracy theory until today, all the slides I've triggered before today were either running on buried near surface facets or lighter density snow from earlier in the storm, but this one clearly broke on buried surface hoar that was still intact after the slide, I could see the feathers plain as day. This just complicates the snow pack problem more and adds one more weak layer into the mix. We then continued on up to the top of Reynolds Peak which had it own natural new snow avalanche which I put on the Avy page. Buy the time we left the PI rate were about as high as I've seen in quite awhile.

Photos: Crown, Fractures in the dense slab, spider web cracks on the slope, intact surface hoar found on the bed surface of the slide, Intense PI rates in the afternoon.