Check out these layers!

[sunvalleylaw]

We are finally getting a good dump of snow these last few days. We had some early, but we had a dry spell in December and another in early January. So we powder hounds are excited. But with new snow after a lay off, you get some bad layering which contributes to avalanche danger. Here is a cool pic showing how it all works. It is one of the best I have seen recently for showing what can happen in a snow pack. Just FYI in case anyone is interested. I will be staying inbounds where the patrol has done avalanche control for the next several days.

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w92/sunvalleylaw/snowlayers.jpg

From the avalanche center: As expected, found that the new snow is quickly overloading a very weak snowpack in the Baldy sidecountry. Prior to the new snow, the snowpack was tot-to-bottom sugary facets. With more snow overnight, we're on the verge of seriously unstable conditions out of bounds. CL

[Tig]

Awesome (and always a bit scary).

I've back country skied only one time in Utah, and it was incredible. We had one bowl with a slight risk, and we had beacons, but it still made to cautious.

[riverrick]

That's some incredible pics Steve. Being born & raised in So. Cal. I wouldn't know how to handle all that white stuff!!!...lol. We had a drizzle of rain this AM (finally). When ever it rains here, it's always all over the news as STORM WATCH!!! Pretty funny....huh

[poodlesrule]

oh... layers? I did a quick read of the post tile and saw "lawyers", so I was expecting cute ones, and all I got was snow!

Well documented and impressive though, very nice.
Avalanches are something.

Speaking of snow, I am wondering how the new-to-us Odyssey minivan is going to negociate the slight but long incline on the snowy (8 inches?) driveway... I do not think traction control is going to help me there, but I may be wrong

[NWBasser]

Hey Steve. We got smacked by that storm before it reached you. We had seven inches of snow at our house and a layer of frozen rain. Had a heap of fun sledding down our cul-de-sac.

Getting around was fine since I got a Tacoma 4x4 recently.

Avalanches - Some years ago, I was snowshoeing with my cousin a some of his friends up in the North Cascades (Green Mountain). He and one of his friends went up the mt. ahead of us while we ate lunch on the south-exposed hill face. As I was sitting there in the trees a big slide cut loose in the open slope right next to us and covered our tracks from earlier. It scared the piss out of me. Shortly thereafter, another even bigger one cut loose by us.

Anyway, on the way back down the mt. I was having delusions. Really strange. In my mind, there were several people from the mt. biking club with me and we were going down the mt. on bikes. In the snow. I had enough sense at least to tell my cousin that I was seeing people that weren't there and he helped guide me down the hill.

I can't figure out how the terror of the avalanches caused me to space out so badly.