Soldier & Wood River Valley Mtns

You can easily trigger large avalanches from a distance that fail in surprising ways on most steep slopes today. Avalanches will be larger and more destructive as you gain elevation and move into wind-affected terrain. Skiers and riders remotely triggered large to very large avalanches from hundreds to thousands of feet away each of the past four days, and similar slides are likely again today. Our snowpack is complex, and unstable — build in wide safety margins.

DANGEROUS EVEN FROM A DISTANCE

Walking out the door today, focus on the fact that you will find a complex, unstable, and unwelcoming snowpack in the mountains — one that is capable of producing surprising and very large avalanches from a distance away. The snowpack has been under constant stress for the past 10 days. It hasn't just been recently loaded, but doubled in depth in many places. There was a 36-hour long extreme wind event, a cold snap to warming trend that swung temperatures between -40 to 40F, and 3 distinct avalanche cycles that brought us near-historic slides both natural and human-triggered. In each of the past five days, skiers and riders have remotely triggered large to very large avalanches. One of these slides was triggered from over a half mile away and produced an avalanche that could damage your house. 

You will encounter two different snowpacks in this zone — a lean one and a fat one. Both can produce deadly avalanches. It can be hard to wrap your head around the variability across this zone, let me attempt to sketch it out for you:

WOOD RIVER VALLEY: The mountains around the Wood River Valley have received the short end of the snowfall stick this season. These hills remained almost completely brown during early-season storms, with snow beginning to accumulate in December. Today, you'll find 1-2 feet of snow on the ground on shaded slopes at middle and upper elevations. Despite the thin snowpack, you'll encounter a slab resting on a layer of weak snow near the ground. Warm temperatures this week helped the overlying slab to consolidate and gain strength. In recent days, Sun Valley Ski Patrol reported widespread cracking and collapsing of the snowpack as they performed routine control work in closed terrain. On Friday, they remotely triggered an avalanche on an E aspect at 8,300' in closed, untraveled terrain. If you are feeling adventurous and you head up high looking for turns above the WRV, expect to find similar avalanche conditions anywhere you are finding enough snow to ski or ride. 

DOLLARHIDE to the SOLDIERS: As the mountains above the WRV languished in drought, the western half of this zone has been stacking snow all season long. There is as much snow at lower elevations here as there is at 9,000' on top of Baldy. At Dollarhide Summit, there are 4 feet of settled snow on the ground. Here, and west into the Soldiers, you'll find a snowpack that resembles that found in the Sawtooth and Western Smoky Mtns forecast zone. The snowpack extends to the valley bottoms, and the avalanche problems do too. There is a lot of smaller avalanche terrain at lower and middle elevations. Here, you'll find many short avalanche paths that end in terrain traps. Imagine sharp road cuts, narrow gullies, and creek bottoms with steep slopes above them. As you gain elevation you'll find increasingly thick slabs that have been stiffened by the wind. You can make very large avalanches here, the type that break hundreds to thousands of feet wide. Be suspicious of steep, snow-covered slopes at all elevations.

Where we choose to place ourselves in relation to avalanche terrain is the number one thing we can control in the mountains. We usually manage these hazards by giving avalanche paths some distance. Today things are dangerous even from a distance. If you choose to head out into the mountains today, remember that you don't only have to manage the terrain that you are traveling immediately through, but also the large paths above, below, and adjacent to you. Slides can break in surprising locations, extend back into low angle terrain, and span wider than you might imagine. Being aware of traffic below you and other parties traveling in your drainage will be crucial to trying to manage these large, destructive, avalanches.  Inadvertently triggering these slides on one another is a real possibility. Today is the type of day that a slip in your attention to terrain could prove disastrous.