Avalanche forecast

Soldier & Wood River Valley Mtns

Sawtooth Avalanche Center
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Avalanche danger

Mon
Alpine
2 · Moderate
Treeline
2 · Moderate
Below
1 · Low
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Highlights

Triggering an avalanche on weak layers buried 1-3 feet deep is becoming less likely. You can reduce most of the risk of triggering a slide by avoiding slopes where the wind has formed drifts or stiffened the snow surface. This will be most common at upper elevations, but you may also find wind-affected slopes in exposed, middle elevation terrain.

Avalanche problems

  • Persistent Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible
    Size
    2

    This zone has persistent weak layers buried 1-3 feet deep on most middle and upper elevation slopes. Recent observations from this zone indicate that these layers are trending towards "dormancy", and fewer signs of instability are being reported. But an observer in the mountains east of Hailey experienced a snowpack collapse that caused an area 50 feet in diameter to crack around him. This is a good reminder that our weak layers of facets, depth hoar, and surface hoar still lurk in the snowpack ... #stillthere.

    Today's forecasted 2-5 inches of new snow will not significantly impact these layers, and we remain in a holding pattern. You can reduce most of the risk of triggering a slide by understanding where avalanches remain possible and avoiding terrain with these characteristics:

    • Wind-loaded terrain: Slopes where recent or past wind formed drifts and/or stiffened the snow surface.  This is especially true in the Wood River Valley, where many wind-sheltered slopes are turning into full-depth sugary snow.
    • Steeper slopes:  "Prime-time" avalanche terrain around 35-45 degrees in steepness.
    • Southerly facing terrain:  In the Soldiers where there is more consistent snow coverage on sunny slopes, crusts and facets 1-3 feet deep seem to be stabilizing more slowly than the weak layers on shadier slopes.

Avalanche Discussion

There's nothing easy about making decisions when there are lingering concerns about buried persistent weak layers. To improve our approach to these situations, there is no way to avoid the concept of risk tolerance. Do you like to drive under the speed limit with your headlights on during the day, or do you tend to drive fast and take chances? 

The problem with applying risk tolerance to backcountry decision making is that we can rarely quantify the actual level of risk we are taking. This is especially true with lingering persistent slab problems. Instead, it can be more useful to evaluate your tolerance for uncertainty. When faced with an uncertain situation, we all respond in different ways, but many of us stick our heads in the sand and pretend there's no problem. That can be a very dangerous approach in avalanche terrain.

My recommendation is to embrace uncertainty and come up with a personal approach to manage it. Rather than getting hung up on assessing the risk ("maybe if we dig one more pit we'll have an answer") or pretending there's no risk, focus on the degree of uncertainty. With our current snowpack, trying to accurately quantify the level of risk is a largely fruitless pursuit. As we get further from significant loading events, it becomes harder and harder to assess the actual likelihood of triggering buried weak layers—especially when they're buried deeper than a few feet. So while I can't tell you exactly what the current risk is, I can tell you that the level of uncertainty is fairly high. Now we actually know something and have a valuable piece of data we can base our decisions on.

By definition, when the uncertainty is high, the level of risk could be low, high, or somewhere in between. It's better to assume the worst and make your decisions accordingly. For me personally, high uncertainty is the same as high risk. At times we may feel very confident (low uncertainty) that the risk is high—on those days, decisions are easy. When both our uncertainty is low and the risk is low—now those are the days we are waiting for. Those are the times to go big and feel good about it.

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