Poor Snowpack Structure

Poor snowpack structure was confined to the layers accumulated during the latest event. The old snow/new snow interface above 9500 is supportable and slippery on steep aspects. Slide for life conditions exist where the new snow is less than 15 cm deep. Surface snow is rapidly weaking as stated above. And as well, the weak layers that are still producing easy sluffing on slopes with angles at and greater than 40 degrees appear to be mixed forms of faceting grauple and .5 mm facets. On many of the slopes that have up to 10 inches of snow from the latest event, the first 2.5 cm above the m/f crust appears to be bonding and then there is still the above cited weak layer that is capable of producing easy shears with Q2 characteristics. Of note, Loose Dry sluffing was still easy to initiate on steep slopes today. In the Brighton Back Bowls, Wolverine Cirque, Patsy Marley and Twin Lakes the amount of traffic and associated avalanches represents the widespread reactivity that came about from the latest event. Both slab avalanche activity and Loose Snow Dry and Wet Avalanches litter the entire terrain. Debris piles of over a meter deep were observed, and the Loose Snow Dry Avalanches were running signficantly long distances. And, it still appears possible to find pockets of soft and moderately hard slab avalanche potential in very steep terrain that received some wind loading to make these slabs cohesive.