Current State of The Backcountry

The current state of the interior backcountry is one that demands respect. All forecasts, public bulletins, and user observations are saying the same thing, reign it in. With numerous reports of failures of the storm slab and our persistent weak including the December 15th, PWL pouring in it's really time to use extreme caution or ski the ski resort. The current situation is meant to persist for some time so be sure to keep informed on Avalanche.ca before the weekend. Here is a perfect example of our problem.  

Grizzly shoulder forest uptrack January 10, 2018, remote trigger of the December 15th PWL from a well-used skin track. The avalanche took some of the skin track with it for good measure. Remote triggered from 5m away, 80cm deep 25m wide and ran for about 150m.  Just a little evidence that " staying in the trees" in our current snowpack just might not be enough. 


Triggered from top right out of frame.


Triggered from here on the skin track.


With that being said the skiing has been pretty good the last few days. Here's a little sample from just above my house.