Observation: Huntington Canyon

With the continued shallow and weak snowpack structure in Huntington Canyon, it feels like we are dealing with a "straw that breaks the camels back" situation. It appears to me that all is needed is a proper new snow load and we would see a decent avalanche cycle. If somehow we squeak through the winter without ever seeing a significant new load in this zone, a warming trend could very well produce significant activity.

This zone differs greatly from the higher terrain where most people recreate. The higher terrain is now enjoying a much deeper and stable snowpack with avalanches breaking deep into weak sugar snow fairly unlikely. One thing to note about this is that with more snow in the mid and lower elevations this year, it does allow recreational travel into places that have a shallow and weak snowpack. This may end up catching someone off guard as you might not be thinking about avalanches in some of this lower elevation terrain.