Increasingly Spicy

We did a quick lap around the Cypress Backcountry to see how the storm was affecting the persistent slab problem and hunt down any fresh storm slabs. The persistent slab is becoming more sensitive to human triggering as new snow is added to it. We found it easy to trigger a size 1.5 persistent slab avalanche while walking along the Hollyburn Ridge. It’s size was limited due to terrain, it could have been much bigger. We jumped down into the crown and found both facets and surface hoar sitting above the crust with about 60 cm of slab above it. As we got in to more wind exposed country near Strachan we found fresh storm slabs 10 to 20 cm in depth that were also sensitive to human triggering. The skiing is okay, but the dense storm snow felt upside down. We kept our terrain choices very conservative as we skied back to the parking lot.