No Lottery Tickets

There were some pretty spicy avalanche conditions in the Pine Pass today! As soon as we reached the tree line we could see evidence of many size 1-2 slab avalanches that had come down during the storm yesterday and overnight. They were all on wind-loaded north and east facing slopes. We dug a pit to determine the weak layer that the avalanches were failing on and found a delicate layer of surface hoar buried 60cm that was quite reactive in our test (ECTP 23). We felt a whumpf and also noted some shooting cracks during our day. In the Pine Bowl we witnessed a rider trigger a large avalanche while riding up a steep northeast facing slope and luckily escape unharmed (that group also posted a MIN ?) The fracture line on that slide was 30-70cm deep and had failed on the same surface hoar we had seen in our pit. This surface hoar layer is likely to cause problems and keep the hazard elevated for a while to come.