Avalanche: Beaver Mountain Backside

We observed numerous small avalanches and fractures on the backside of Beaver today. They picked up about 14" last night so everything was more sensitive than yesterday. None of these ran far due to the low slope angle but in addition to shattering cracks there was some more movement today. Some of the cracks we observed went to the ground, some were just the new snow. Wild to see an entire area fracture, move about a foot, then stop. Alot of whumpfing and collapsing under foot. Most of these events occurred on East/NE facing slopes way below the ridgeline. Terrain features like cliffbands and sub-ridges seemed to have these pockets tucked nicely away on the leeward side. Many skiers triggered fractures with no idea that they had. A few of the steep cliff bands did produce avalanches that ran a couple hundred feet.

This area is outside of the ski area boundaries but frequently skied/boarded especially on powder days. The ski patrol does not regularly perform control work here though, today, there were a few out there performing ski cuts in those steeper pockets.

Also observed activity in the Chicken Hill Ridge/White Pine area from highway.