Scary Snowpack out here.

[sunvalleylaw]

Check out this vid on how the snow pack has developed this year. Note the extremely large slab of new snow over the top of very early October snow that became very "sugary" and unstable during a very dry and extremely cold late fall/early winter.

http://www.youtube.com/user/sawtoothavalanche#p/a/u/0/qVEGb-8VhlQ

A man died inbounds on Baldy the other day when some of this stuff broke loose from above him, while he was on the side of a north east facing slope. The powder skiing is great right now, but it is time to be very careful about where you go.

Just sharing this vid because it is pretty interesting how it all works. When I was in the Pacific Northwest growing up, we did not typically get these layers. There was avalanche danger at times, but more when the snow got so heavy and wet that it just fell down. This stuff out here is altogether different.

[just strum]

Hey Steve, despite your love for that stuff, be careful. We know that you are very familiar with dealing with it, but certainly don't want to read you posting about a near accident of your own.

[sunvalleylaw]

Word. Though I am up for guided trips, or trips with experienced people, I don't trust my own knowledge of backcountry snow travel in the intermountain west to do a lot of back country. I am mostly on Baldy, inbounds. Still, you have to watch what is going on, get educated, be prepared, and use your inner radar.

[Tig]

Skied the interconnect from Park City to Deer Valley/Snowbird/Solitude/Alta, etc., many years ago. It was the best ski adventure of my life!

The avalanche threat was a bit scary, though.

[Spudman]

Yikes! That's a pretty thick slab. Bummer about the death.

[deeaa]

We have a sort of similar situation here...only, we don't have mountains, just a few fells up north. The last ice age pretty much leveled the land :-)

So there is no danger of avalanches but the snow is weird; in many a place it's accumulated wayyy worse than normal...normally there's a warm spell or two, or hard winds that move it and drop it off treetops etc...but now it's been steadily cold and no wind since xmas...and you see huge packs of snow on big trees etc...they can be a real danger, since they are very unstable, not really frozen on them but lying on powdery snow base. They're using helicopters to drop those off danger areas, like power line towers etc....but it's strange.