Careful, there is some language in this video that some may find offensive. This is a video that has been posted on YouTube. I have embedded the link should you wish to view it.

Take some time to view the many other pieces of footage that are linked to this video. If there are any that are particularly good….please email me the link. I would like to embed other clips as well.

A few things to notice:

• the rider makes it very close to the breakover point of this hill (the convex roll). This is a VERY COMMON STRESS POINT on any slope.
• notice how thin and rocky this snowpack is. ALSO A VERY COMMON CHARACTERISTIC OF WEAK SNOWPACKS.
• the vast majority of the hill slides. The weakness is very WIDESPREAD versus localized (or small pockets) of instability. Take extreme care in these conditions.
• notice that the initial avalanche has stepped down in a couple of places to even lower layers. Deep avalanche fractures can be very dangerous due to the amount of snow. Although they are harder to trigger, once started they can propagate widely across the slope.