Baker Creek

Highly consequential avalanches are easy to trigger in most locations at middle and upper elevations in the mountains. These slides can reasonably run down in lower-elevation terrain in some locations, with crowns extending into unusually lower-angled slopes. While wind-effected snow surfaces are a good indicator of wind slabs, they very well may be absent in many areas where a large persistent slab avalanche is still likely. The only way to ensure safe travel in the mountains is to pay very close attention to how you manage terrain. 

Cracking and collapsing were both widespread. Collapses varied from localized at just a few feet out in radius, to collapsing an entire 100' slope.

Riding out Baker Creek, new snow on the valley bottom ranged from 30-40cm, with soft and dry surfaces. We observed many 15-20 small to very large (D1-D2.5) avalanches on peaks that we could observe from riding on the road on our way in. Leaving our sleds via skis at 7200', I found 40-50cm of F to F+ freshly deposited snow on top of many layers of weak, faceted F- snow that I would sink through to the ground when breaking trail. Fresh snow was laying on top of two distinct layers of buried surface hoar roughly 40 and 53cm down into the snowpack. Climbing above 7600', the new snow was slightly more wind-stiffened even in sheltered locations, with more supportable surfaces below. 

Reaching 8000' on a NW aspect, we observed a D2 avalanche that initiated on a wind-loaded roll, failing on what was likely the top layer of buried SH ~4-5mm in size, then stepping down to entrain much of the snowpack just 40' lower down on the slope. While the winds had placed some fresh snow on this slide, it was no more than 48hrs old.