We went to Gobblers Knob to see the extent of the Feb 10 avalanche and how the normal skin track was affected. We were sobered to see no practical way of approaching or leaving Gobblers without crossing avalanche debris, something I don't remember seeing in 40 years of skiing that area.

We skied the Gobblers shoulder, where the skin track is typically placed south of the Feb 10 slide path. That area is less steep with large trees showing no evidence of avalanche damage and we observed no cracking, collapsing, or natural avalanche activity. We also skied a much steeper very short test slope south of the Feb 10 slide path and about halfway down the slide path in elevation with no results. Is the snowpack strengthening? Is there a lot of spatial variabiilty? Both? If we had not seen the Feb 10 slide path or the Feb 11 Kelly snow profile, we would have been tempted to ski something a little steeper. Good example of why persistant weak layers are so nasty