This season the western U.S. is especially prone to one of the worst layers for wet slabs—depth hoar. Doug Chabot is the director of the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center based in Bozeman, ...

These types of avalanches generally occur ... through the snowpack and saturates the slab, causing it to settle and creep downhill with the force of gravity. Additionally, the water that has reached ...

The CAIC reports that the avalanche was a Persistent Slab. This type of avalanche includes various layers, and is defined as the "release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab), when the bond to an ...