Quick report
"Spooky moderate" is a term I first learned in Utah, where an annual weak layer makes itself apparent, then falls into dormancy for an extended period as weather moderates and avalanche danger subsides from pre-storm maxima. I traveled in the Icicle BTL today, and there is an abundance of buried, weak snow, with insufficient density to trigger slab avalanches. The snowpack structure is a recipe for a potential extended period of spooky moderate avalanche hazard. Under the 31 Jan storm snow I found fist hard, faceted snow to the Jan 10 crust, with the JDL crust faceted away at N 4000'. I rebroke my skin track from a month ago today, finding HS 100, with weak, cohesionless snow that skied well, but made for a slower than expected dawn patrol. The central Icicle appears to be the sucker hole, with less snow than both Leavenworth and the upper Icicle and Stevens Pass. I did a transect of hand pits, including on slight solar (E, W) and the structure was poor from 2000' to 4000'. HN was half or less of the Stevens Pass area in most places. Light winds gusted to moderate and on my descent I triggered a fast running D1 dry loose that entrained snow below the JDL interface. I have no evidence, but my suspicions are that a slab would have propagated widely on this same 40 degree feature with the same structure (and I would never have traveled there). If the wind blows, temps rise, the current spooky moderate conditions will start to show us what makes them spooky (persistent slab avalanches).