Poker Ride Snowpack Check

We rode up to the Indepedence Mine area (outside our advisory area) to check out the snowpack conditions before the Poker Ride this Saturday. As we arrived in the basin we saw a good sized recent natural avalanche. This really tells you all you need to know - recent avalanches are the clearest sign that triggering more avalanches is possible.

We then dug and confirmed that the snowpack is just as weak as it is across our advisory area. Two feet of fist hardness facets at the ground with almost four feet of slab above them make for a very weak structure.

If you're headed up for the ride this weekend I'd advise avoiding riding on and staying out from under slopes steeper than 30 degrees.