Snake River Range

Human-triggered avalanches will become possible later in the day as new snow accumulates and will be more likely in steep, north facing sheltered terrain. Maintain a conservative mindset and evaluate the new snow and what’s just beneath before committing to consequential terrain. Shooting cracks or collapsing are clear signals to move to lower angle terrain.

As of this morning, no real slab development has occurred to raise concerns of avalanches failing on weak snow from our prolonged drought. Today’s forecasted weather doesn’t seem likely to change that given the light wind and moderate amounts of snow forecasted. There’s been a high degree of spatial variability though with spotty areas of buried, preserved surface hoar to keep in mind along with near surface facets that provided great recycled powder skiing over the past few weeks. The previous storm came in warm and windy which hopefully wiped out most of the feathery crystals but it is too early to make the call about all of the weak grain types. Be mindful of the recently buried problems today including old hard snow and low tide rocks and stumps as well as more sinister concerns like the pockets of buried weak surface hoar.  An assessment mindset is in order today.

Please continue sharing photos or a description of what you see in the mountains! Observations will be critical as we see how new snow behaves!