The deaths of two Colorado men caught in avalanches and a third in Montana over the frigid Presidents Day weekend show how backcountry skiers and others in the Rocky Mountain wilderness risk triggering weak layers of snow that have created the most hazardous conditions in a decade, forecasters say. At least 25 people have been killed in avalanches in the United States this year — more than the 23 who died last winter. Typically, 27 people die in avalanches in the U.S. annually. Avalanche forecasters say they have rarely seen the danger as high as it is now — and it will grow as more snow moves into the Rockies, adding weight and stress on a weak, granular base layer of snow that’s susceptible to breaking apart and triggering especially wide slides on steep slopes. The main culprit is that ground layer of snow that dropped in October. A dry November weakened it, which is anywhere from several inches (centimeters) to several feet (meters) thick, and despite more snow falling, it’s stayed the consistency of granular sugar, said Dave Zinn, an avalanche forecaster for the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center in southwestern Montana. “That layer consists of large, sugary crystals that don’t bond together well. It’s impossible to make a snowball from it. And when it becomes weighted down, it becomes fragile and breaks,” bringing down the heavier layers on top of it, Zinn said. “It’s the weakest link in the chain. When you pile on more snow, there’s always one spot that’s going to break,” said Ethan Greene, director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.  This aerial photo provided by Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center shows a ground team approaching the area of an avalanche in the Gallatin National Forest, Mont., Feb. 14, 2021.On Sunday, backcountry skier Craig Kitto, 45, of Bozeman, Montana, was fatally injured when the forest slope he and a companion were climbing cracked without warning, collapsed and swept him downhill into a tree. The other person wasn’t hurt. Similar conditions may have led to the death of 57-year-old David Heide, a backcountry skier whose body was found in an avalanche debris field Sunday in central Colorado’s Clear Creek County. In neighboring Grand County, an avalanche carried a snowmobiler onto a frozen lake Sunday, and his body was found buried in snow. A coroner is investigating. On February 6, Utah saw its deadliest avalanche in about 30 years when four backcountry skiers in their 20s died. Another four dug themselves out of the 1,000-foot (300-meter) slide east of Salt Lake City. Several factors are at play in the rash of deaths: The snowpack, which can be affected by windstorms shifting and piling snow atop weak layers; weather conditions that can change rapidly in the high altitudes of the Rockies; and the availability of public lands in the U.S. West, where people often take advantage of easily accessible national forest. In contrast, ski areas have long ensured their slopes are groomed, potential avalanches in their areas are triggered, and nearby backcountry areas are closed before the first customers hit the lift lines. It’s not uncommon for skiers at Colorado’s Loveland Ski Area to hear an occasional howitzer targeting danger-prone areas on wind-blown peaks approaching 13,000 feet (3,950 meters) along the Continental Divide. “The ski patrols do lots of work to mitigate hazards,” Zinn said. “But in the backcountry, we have to be our own avalanche experts.” Avalanche centers in Colorado, Montana and Utah, as well as the U.S. Forest Service National Avalanche Center, issue daily advisories on conditions and risk levels, as well as safety and training resources.  The Colorado Avalanche Information Center issued a special advisory Monday, warning that “large, wide and long-running natural and human-triggered avalanches are likely.” Are people getting the message? “That’s a hard one to answer,” Greene acknowledged Monday. “Yesterday was tragic, a horrible thing. We don’t know how many got the messages and pursued some other type of recreation. We don’t know how many made it out safely.” Taking precautionsForecasters emphasize standard precautions before heading into the backcountry: * Have rescue gear: A beacon, a probe to check snow conditions, a shovel. Know how to use them. * Check daily forecasts. * Keep an eye out for recent avalanche activity. * Take a guided tour. * Don’t go it alone if possible. Make sure only one person in your party is in exposed terrain at any given time. “The bottom line is that partner rescue is the only way we have positive outcomes in the backcountry,” Zinn said. Record cold temperatures in much of the Rockies “reduce your margin for error,” Zinn added. “If you have an accident, minor injuries become serious ones, and serious ones become deadly with the compounding factor of hypothermia.” Greene said that while there’s adventure in the wildest parts of public lands, “having the freedom to go where you want comes the responsibility of taking care of yourself.”  
 
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More than 150 million people in the central and southern United States were under winter storm warnings or advisories Monday, with record-breaking cold temperatures gripping the nation from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border.
 
The south-central state of Texas may be takin g the worst of the winter weather.  Hit by ice storms last week that led to a deadly, 100-vehicle pileup on a freeway, on Sunday much of the state saw snow, more ice and unusually cold temperatures. The thermometer at Houston’s Intercontinental Airport early Monday read –8.3 degrees Celsius, the coldest temperature there in 32 years.
 
Officials in charge of the state’s electricity grid said the storms and frigid temperatures locked up wind turbines on Sunday, reducing power output.  Meanwhile, the cold weather created excessive energy demand prompting electric companies to implement rolling blackouts.
 
Officials say at least 2.5 million people were without power early Monday. Texas Governor Greg Abbott reached out to U.S. President Joe Biden, who, Sunday, declared a state of emergency for Texas, authorizing U.S. agencies to coordinate.
 
While forecasters say Texas and the rest of the central U.S. are likely to see more record-breaking cold into Tuesday, the winter weather is already moving to the east. Louisiana is among those states under a winter storm warning with snow, ice, and temperatures at or below freezing already hitting much of the state.
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After a weeklong bus ride from Honduras, Isabel Osorio Medina arrived in northern Mexico with the hope President Joe Biden would make it easier for people like him to get into the United States.
“It seems the new president wants to help migrants,” Osorio said as he got ready to check in to a cheap hotel in downtown Tijuana before heading to the U.S. “They’re saying he is going to help, but I don’t know for sure how much is true or not.”
The 63-year-old is among thousands of people who have come to the U.S.-Mexico border with the hope they will be able to ask for asylum and make their way into the U.S. now that former President Donald Trump is no longer in office.  
While Biden has taken some major steps in his first weeks in office to reverse Trump’s hardline immigration policies, his administration has not lifted some of the most significant barriers to asylum-seekers.  
In fact, it’s discouraging people from coming to the country, hoping to avoid what happened under both Trump and former President Barack Obama — border agents getting overwhelmed by migrants, including many Central Americans with children.
“Now is not the time to come,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a recent briefing, “and the vast majority of people will be turned away.”  
Secretary of State Antony Blinken struck a similar tone on Feb. 6 as he announced official steps to end Trump-era agreements with Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala that required many asylum-seekers to seek refuge in one of those countries instead of the U.S.  
“To be clear, these actions do not mean that the U.S. border is open,” Blinken said. “While we are committed to expanding legal pathways for protection and opportunity here and in the region, the United States is a country with borders and laws that must be enforced.”  
That message hasn’t reached everyone.  
More people have been arriving at an encampment in Matamoros, Mexico, a dangerous city just south of the Texas border where hundreds of asylum-seekers have been waiting under Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program.  
It’s possible even more may come after the Biden administration announced Friday that it would slowly allow an estimated 25,000 people to enter the U.S. as their cases are reviewed. The first wave is expected Feb. 19.
Walter Valenzuela, a 37-year-old Honduran, said he had been waiting in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, for months for a chance to either seek asylum or risk an illegal crossing.
For years, asylum-seekers who met the initial threshold of demonstrating a “credible fear” of persecution in their homeland could generally stay in the U.S. until an immigration judge decided whether they qualified for permanent residency, which can take years.  
Trump administration officials believed many asylum claims were fraudulent or lacked merit, submitted by people simply looking to remain in the U.S. But the issue is murky as tens of thousands flee violent gangs, natural disasters and political upheaval.
The Biden administration has signed several executive orders on immigration, including allowing in more refugees and establishing a task force to find the parents of about 600 children who were separated under Trump and still haven’t been reunited.
But it hasn’t ended a public health order Trump issued at the start of the coronavirus pandemic that allows U.S. Customs and Border Protection to immediately expel nearly everyone, including asylum-seekers.  
Psaki said the government is still working to develop a “humane, comprehensive process” to evaluate people coming to the U.S.  
“Asylum processes at the border will not occur immediately,” she said. “It will take time to implement.”  
Alan Bersin, who held top positions dealing with border security during the Clinton and Obama administrations, warned that Biden is headed for a crisis if he releases all asylum-seekers into the United States. That would invite fraud and abuse, he said.
“There’s such a pressing sense in the advocate community that is controlling the Biden immigration agenda — they want to reverse all Trump actions,” he said.  
Meanwhile, pressure is mounting.
The number of people apprehended at the border has increased since January, though it’s below some previous periods. Authorities say many are getting caught and returned multiple times.
Complicating matters, a law has taken effect in Mexico that prohibits holding children in migrant detention centers, and the U.S. has stopped sending back some families along parts of the border.
CBP, which doesn’t have capacity to hold families because of COVID-19, in recent weeks has released dozens of people into the U.S. with instructions to appear in court later.
Authorities fear that as word spreads of those releases, more people will come. And asylum is not the only immigration issue creating headwinds for Biden’s administration.
Texas and Arizona have both sued to stop Biden’s 100-day deportation moratorium, which a judge temporarily put on hold. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement officers are complaining about proposed rules to focus on detaining and removing people in the country illegally who pose national security threats or have been convicted of more serious crimes.  
Jon Feere, a senior adviser to ICE under Trump, said such moves are part of a larger pattern that the Biden administration will come to regret.  
“When you send the message that you are not serious about immigration enforcement, you can’t act surprised when you see a massive influx of people that you have to manage,” he said.
Raul Ortiz, deputy chief of the Border Patrol, said last week that as a liaison to the Biden transition team, he found the staff to be “very attentive” to the issues. Some had experience with surges of asylum-seekers under Obama.  
“This wasn’t uncharted waters,” Ortiz said in an interview  produced by the Border Patrol. “It wasn’t like we were starting from scratch.”
The larger debate is lost on Osorio, who came to Tijuana because he heard Biden wants to help people like him. He says he intended to seek asylum based on the dangers he faced as an environmental activist protesting illegal logging in Honduras.
But because he can’t seek asylum at the official border crossing in San Diego, other migrants told him about a place he could try to cross illegally. He said if he encountered the Border Patrol, he would ask for asylum and see what happens.  
“They already told us more or less how to do it,” Osorio said. “We’re going to take a look.”
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