Huntington Ravine

The approach to Huntington Ravine on the Fire Road was a challenging skin through stiff, deep wind slab that was strong-over-weak in character.  Stiff snow on the top of the slab effectively preserved very light density fist-hard snow below. I experienced widespread cracking in new windslab on this approach.  Cracks propagated out 10 feet from my skis and in some areas, collapsing of the very soft buried weak layer was occuring.  It wasn't hard to find sensitive drifts on the trail that were 4 feet thick.

At the bottom of the ravine, I did not see any obvious signs of wind slab avalanche activity. Steep terrain appeared to be blanketed with smooth, drifted snow.  I did not see evidence of any scouring at middle or upper elevations at the time I was in the ravine, around 11:00 am. 

Since I did not feel comfortable traveling underneath large avalanche paths today, I did not get an idea of the snowpack in steep avalanche terrain.  However, the snowpack feedback I was getting on the approach told me a lot about the types of slabs that are lingering higher in the terrain, especially in wind-protected areas.