Wind Loading

Collapsing

Poor Snowpack Structure

Occasionally I get a collapse on the deeply buried faceted snow. But there's not a whole lot of weight on top of that layer except in wind deposited areas. With the new snow just teasing us along with a few inches here, a few there, it's not adding up fast enough to make the instability widespread, but it's just enough to keep me from jumping on anything over 30 degrees. The snowpack is so thin that there's a huge amount of spatial variability so it's tricky. The hidden obstacles under the snow are almost as hazardous as avalanches. Distubingly, I've noticed that people have avoided many dangerous slopes but they have also skied up others--places where I fear to tread, like the east face of 10,420. Yikes. Some of the steep, north facing features slid during a previous avalanche cycle and they are starting to look fat again.