Too much snow?

Riding quality was:

Amazing

Snow conditions were:

• Deep powder
• Heavy
• Powder
• Wind affected

We rode:

• Dense trees
• Mellow slopes

We stayed away from:

• Alpine slopes
• Convex slopes
• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Stormy
• Warm
• Wet
• Windy

Avalanche conditions

• Slab avalanches today or yesterday.
• 30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.
• Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.
• Rapid temperature rise to near or above 0°C or wet surface snow.

Exceptional snow delivery from the recent storm at PK today for an AST1 field day in the slackcountry. Visibility in the am was terrible so we stayed in the lower trees. We found a layer 25 cm down in the storm snow that was very reactive, but not dense enough to propagate in our pit area. We also had reactive layers that did propagate down 60 and 110 cm, in the moderate range. (ECTP 22 down 60 SP HST, ECTP 24 down 110 SP DF) The Feb surface hoar layer was down 155 cm here, well preserved (4-6mm) and also reactive. Total snow was 380 cm

We saw several ski triggered size one slides around the bottom of the elevator shaft in the afternoon. Any slope that was open and north aspected above 35º seemed to be sliding on that 25 cm storm layer, and we also observed numerous natural dry loose slides on the ridge across the valley, and wet slides along the highway where the temps were around 3º. We got a 6 for 6 score on the Avalanche Conditions of the Avaluator, so we felt that the high danger rating was more than justified today!