Its still there...

Nice sunny day in Mear Lake area. We saw some natural slab avalanches in the alpine most likely dating from the weekend. We were curious to see how the persistant weak layer was doing there, so we dug a pit around 2000m. We found the mid-nov weak layer (surface hoar down 50 cm) and it was still quite reactive to our snowpack tests. Boo. Above the weak layer is a windslab that is either hidden by soft snow in protected areas or exposed in the alpine. We felt that it was a good idea to stay away from steep alpine areas, especially where the windslab would vary in thickness (see how the fracture of the avalanche picture posted goes from thin to thick).