Beehive/ Bear Basin

We toured into Beehive and Bear Basins on the final day of the Arctic deep freeze. No forth coming signs of widespread instability, but we found unstable results in our snowpit on the SW facing slope to the south of Tyler's (ECTP18). The slab failed and propagated on depth hoar near the bottom of the snowpack. North of Spanky's in Bear Basin, there was plenty of weak snow but insufficient slab to propagate failure in tests (ECTX and PST 30/100 Slab Fracture). 

The weak snow making up the foundation is nearly universal, but the snowpack is not universally unstable. Where these weak layers are capped by a sufficient slab of cohesive snow from wind-loaded drifts or recent storms, they can produce avalanches. Avoid the avalanches by seeking out lower-angle terrain or minimize the odds of triggering a slide by selecting terrain sheltered from recent wind loading and testing for instability before considering steeper terrain.