Persistent Slabs
- Alpine
- Treeline
- Below treeline
- Likelihood
- Possible
- Size
- 3
Above, a northeast facing slope around Anchor Lake hovering right around 11,000', is an example of a repeater slope... meaning it's avalanched several times and left behind a shallow, weak snowpack. These areas, steep and rocky, are where you are most likely to trigger today's persistent slab avalanche.
It feels like spring, but in some terrain on the eastern front, the snowpack has remained thin and sugary in places... think, slopes that have avalanched several times this year or what we call repeaters. Here's the problem... recent storm snow blanketed the range with a thick coat of white paint and everything looks uniform and feels super solid under our skis, board, or sled. However, if you trench down, you'll still find weak, sugary facets beneath the surface, now buried between 1' and 3’ deep and that's the devious culprit behind recent persistent slab avalanches.
As I begin to set my sights on bigger terrain this spring I'm keepin' it tight and simply avoiding shallower areas of the snowpack like steep, rocky terrain where I'm more likely to trigger an avalanche that breaks into an old persistent weak layer. Shallow areas are easily identified by just whipping out my probe and getting a feel for snow depths, helping me steer away from shallow, suspect areas.
In addition, when I step out, I make sure the slopes I'm choosing don't have any overhead hazard, and are void of consequential terrain features like trees, cliff bands, or gullies in the runout below. And finally, I'm exposing only one person at a time to potential hazard.
Our main man with the Uinta plan, Ted Scroggin, was near Gold Hill yesterday and noted... " I did get an ECTP27 that looked liked the column failed on some near surface faceted snow during a break in the storms."
