Northern New Mexico

You can find stiff cohesive slabs resting over weak faceted snow on Northwest through East aspects near and above treeline. It's in these areas it's still possible to trigger a persistent slab avalanche. These avalanches may be large enough to bury, injure, or kill a person. Evaluate snow and terrain carefully before committing to a particular slope. 

Strong winds on Tuesday have stiffened the surface into breakable crusts and created variable skiing and riding conditions near and above treeline on slopes exposed to winds. Until we get snow (hopefully Saturday!) not much is changing with the overall persistent slab problem that we've now been talking about for weeks.   Stiff cohesive slabs rest on top of several faceted weak layers.  Although triggering an avalanche right now has become increasingly difficult as move further away from the last loading event at the end of December.  We continue to find facet layers in long column tests still reactive. We are firmly entrenched in the classic low likelihood, high consequence avalanche conditions.  It may not be the first several people on a slope to trigger an avalanche. And if one were to be triggered there's a decent chance it would be large enough to bury a skier or rider. Always consider what would happen if the slope you are about to ski or ride were to avalanche. Where is the safest place to group at the top? Where can we regroup after skiing that will keep us out of the runout? Skiing one at a time, beacon checks at the trailhead, etc. Small but impactful decisions like these ones can make a world of difference in the event that the unexpected were to happen.  

With a potential snowstorm only a couple of days out and skiing and riding conditions not the greatest right now, it's not a bad time to turn our attention to what will happen over the weekend. The last two storms we had in December, both produced natural and human triggered avalanches running on persistent faceted weak layers. These prolonged high-pressure periods in between storms that seem to be the norm this season have not helped our overall shallow snowpack and faceted weak layers heal.   Our set-up heading into this storm is almost identical to what we were seeing in December.  With any kind of loading event, the weak faceted layers are going to be stressed and should become more reactive.  We've seen many paths already avalanche multiple times this year and we could see that trend continue as we just haven't been able to turn the corner.  There is still a lot of uncertainty with this storm for snowfall amounts, but it shouldn't take much of a loading event to increase avalanche danger on our shallow poor snowpack structure.

Below treeline, we lack cohesive slabs with mostly a weak shallow cohesionless snowpack on northerly and shady aspects. South aspects have been melting back to bare ground and below 10,000' the overall snowpack is incredibly shallow.   Ground hazards are abundant and in steep terrain, you may get snow to start to entrain itself creating a loose snow avalanche that could drag you down the slope over a cliff or into a terrain trap.

The BCA Beacon Basin Park is up and operational for the year as well! Located at the base of Chair 4 at Taos Ski Valley, this is a great place to practice using your avalanche transceiver before heading out into the backcountry. BCA has also put together a series of fantastic video products overviewing the topics of beacon searches, probing, and strategic shoveling. These aren't a replacement for companion rescue education but can help to fill in some of the gaps that form with most perishable skills. Times during high pressure are great for getting out to work on your companion rescue skills. Grab a friend and have fun with it!

You can find each video here...

Beacon Search | Probing | Strategic Shoveling