JACKSON (WNE) — More than five backcountry skiers, riders and snowmobilers — including a family — have been carried and buried by avalanches in the past week in the greater Teton area. All of them have survived.

Frank Carus, executive director of the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center, said the number of accidents is indicative of how dangerous and atypical the snowpack remains a week after the last snowfall.

“These things are occurring in places and ways that people don’t expect,” Carus said. “It’s not just big high alpine terrain, but mid-elevation slopes that aren’t obvious avalanche paths.”

A month-long drought in December created a variety of weak layers — surface hoar, crusts and more — that were preserved in January when a series of storms dropped around 4 feet of snow in the Teton area. A week after the snow stopped, those weak layers are continuing to act like ball bearings under the new snow, which is consolidating into a hard slab capable of seriously injuring people caught in avalanches.

Carus said those layers are more widespread than usual.

Since this past Saturday, the avalanche danger has been “considerable” at mid- and upper-elevation areas in the Tetons, meaning “dangerous” avalanche conditions exist, natural avalanches are “possible” and human-triggered slides are “likely.”

Though the danger rating has come down from “high,” in part because there have been fewer natural avalanches, forecasters have consistently warned about those dangerously weak layers.

Carus said the people who have been carried and buried in the past week have been lucky.

“Fortunately, they haven’t run into trees and they’ve been dug out quickly by skilled people,” he said.