Didn't get in to the terrain today where this problem type could live. I suspect there's so little snow available for transport now that we will have to wait until the mountains receive more new snow for this problem type to increase in danger. Pulled winds speeds from the remote WX stations. Fast enough to transport snow I just didn't see any plumes blowing off of the high alpine peaks. Perhaps in lower elevations that tend to be more sheltered and are holding softer snow you could see some cross loading events take place. If you managed to find a wind slab that was sensitive enough to fail I would think it would be quite shallow. Not deep enough to bury you, but in the wrong terrain it could send you off a rock, or bang you in to some trees.

This I am sure will echo the past few observations I have read. The snowpack is loosing strength. I have not had my eyes in a pit in the La Sals for a couple weeks, so it was time to see what's likely going to be most problematic once winter decides to return. Hopefully starting Monday with a better chance of snow on Tuesday and Wednesday. An X-Mas special would be nice. Dave and I pulled our shovels out on an 318 degree NNW slope at 9,904 feet. Near the toe of Exxon's Folly historic trim line. We found an average depth in our pit of 69 cm. 2 layers stood out to me the most. The first being roughly 14 cm down from the surface. A 2 cm thick F hard layer off small grain facets. They measured .2 mm - .5 mm and were reactive in Compression Tests. Test one CTE SC Q1 failing on the 5th tap. 2nd test CTE SC Q1 failing on the 3rd tap. We then set up an ECT. I was thinking we would not see propagation. Scored that one as an ECTX. The F hardness snow above that weak layer was simply not strong enough to propagate across that column. This layer could be the problem when we add a slab on top.

The 2nd layer of concern was another layer of facets closer to the ground with a 4F to 1F 15 cm thick slab sitting on top of them. This weak layer is 9 cm thick containing .5 mm - 1 mm facets with a bit of rounding present. This layer is on a 5 cm thick P+ crust that's sitting on the ground. After our CT's I put then shovel deeper in to the snowpack and continued the CT. Could not get this layer to fail. During our ECT after about 20 taps the side I was hitting was blown out. I wailed on the last ten to see if I could get the faceted layer closer to the ground to fail and propagate. I could not. Still seams like the basal facets are non reactive.

Danger trending downward in my opinion until we add more weight and slab to the snowpack.