During fieldwork on Saturday I found mostly stable conditions in areas I traveled around Lake Fork near State Road 31. The mid and upper portions of the snowpack are very strong and supportable. In the places I looked at the old faceted snow near the base, I found it has gained a good amount of strength compared to two weeks ago. Snow pit tests produced either non-reactive results or very stubborn results. It was difficult to get the weak layer to fail and propagate across a column of snow.
At this point it seems pretty unlikely that a person will trigger an avalanche that breaks into old weak snow near the ground. There are probably isolated areas where you could find trouble. These would be VERY steep slopes on the north half of the compass in areas with shallow snowpack depths of less than 4 feet total.
Persistent Weak Layer Summary, 2021-2022:
There was a foot or more of snow that fell in October.
This snow melted away on many slopes but it stayed on northwest, north and northeast facing slopes above about 8500'.
The snow that stayed turned into a weak sugary layer during dry weather in November.
We saw a large amount of snow in December which landed on top of the weak snow from October.
The weak layer of sugary faceted snow collapsed and produced avalanches under the stress of the large storms.
The weak layer is still present but has gained some strength.
Snow pit tests are either non-reactive or are very stubborn to get failure and full propagation.
