Yapping chihuahuas and sleepy Rottweilers

Today in the Flathead Range, we encountered easily triggered but predictable storm instabilities and a few subtle hints that buried persistent weak layers are still lurking

• The 6”-8” of low-density new snow sluffed easily in wind-sheltered terrain, both naturally and with ski cuts. Sluffs didn’t run very far except in sustained steep terrain.
• The storm snow became increasingly more cohesive and wind-affected with elevation. At upper elevations, we intentionally triggered a handful of storm slabs with cornice drops and ski cuts. These were harmless by themselves (3” to 8” thick) but entrained enough loose snow below to injure or bury someone in long, steep terrain.
• Our hunt for persistent slab instabilities yielded a mix of propagating and non-propagating test results on the 12/31 interface (small grained facets, no surface hoar or rain crust found). We dropped a fridge-sized cornice on a big slope with no results. However, while I was traversing out to look at a big pile of fresh storm snow debris that we had just cut from above, I got a large collapse. That seems to highlight the potential for moving debris to step down to a persistent slab right now.