25 Short

We were greeted with some arduous trail breaking (though not much, thanks to the awesome folks ahead of us!) due to upside-down conditions. Any steep rollover or slope easily cracked, nodding at wide propagation propensity if one were in continuously steeper terrain. Slab development was fairly widespread starting around 8,800 feet (primarily due to wind exposure). This will change throughout the weekend as more snow falls Saturday into Sunday. As time progresses, the spread and depth of instability will reach further into the middle and low elevations. 

The nature of the current avalanche problem is very unpredictable; few people I've spoken to have experienced winters like this, both locally and across the western US. Surface hoar development has been extensive within the low elevations, patchy throughout the middle elevations, and noted in select places at the upper. This alone brings pause, but the fact that this recently buried snow sat dry for most of December has me tapering back where I'm willing to travel, particularly over the weekend. We currently have two overlapping persistent problems. One will be most certainly triggerable, capable of remote triggering, and widespread (buried January 4, December drought layer). This alone will produce large avalanches. The second (buried 12/1, November drought layer) holds high capability of being involved in "step-down" avalanches on both layers, producing larger-volume avalanches overall. These are not normal conditions, not normal snow layers, and intense weather conditions. As a friend said yesterday: everyone is frothing for the pow. Terrain choices typically skied in storm conditions or are normal fallbacks, particularly high-traffic areas along Teton Pass, the side-country into Rock Springs or Granite, or in the Park, should be heavily re-evaluated in the coming days.