A walk in the woods (with instabilities) .

Quick report

Weather

sunny

Ride Type

mellowSlopes

Stayed Away

steepSlopes, alpineSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

powder, deepPowder

Avalanche Conditions

avalancheConditionSnow, avalancheConditionSound

We did Chester Lake with a group of 8, with the goal to stick to very low angle terrain while hopefully observe signs of instabilities at some point with the team. We were eating lunch at the lake and I started to bounce on the snow, when a noticable whumpf, released and everyone dropped a bit. So we explored the instabilities around the lake. In one area a shooting crack went 10+ m to the steam edge and large slabs cracked off and slid down in to the creek bottom. It was an excellent day of learning on zero consequence terrain, and a rare chance to see such tangible, immediate evidence of the problems in the forecast for a new group.