Not too thin to avalanche!

Not too thin to avalanche!

The snowpack is so thin that grass is sticking up in the foreground.  Moments before the avalanche was triggered it would be easy to assume that there was not enough snow to slide.  A climber triggered this small pocket in 2004 as he approached an ice climb on the north face of Sphinx Mountain. Small slopes and thin snow cover are potentially dangerous, especially when the slopes are atop a cliff. Photo: Jim Earl

Advisory Year
Southern Madison, 2012-10-25