Alta Periphery (Up Collins -> Baldy -> Tombstone -> out backside.)

Wx: Cloudy, light snow showers with 2-3" new. 20 F @ 10000' No wind.

Observation: I agree with the Low danger. The facets from the October storm are damp and from what I saw, are sintering and rounding. New snow is stable and no wind deposited snow was observed. With some effort, I was able to get some stubborn, poor-quality shears within the new snow at a graupel layer, but admittedly I was looking hard for something interesting in the snowpack. I tried to get some new snow to sluff on a steeper rollover in the trees near Tombstone, but the sluff didn't travel far nor did it contain much snow.

Hitting buried rocks, stumps, limbs, etc. pose a greater risk than an avalanche. Am surprised to see people getting after it as if we had a snowpack two or three times the depth of what we have. I am still continuing to clip a few rocks and will continue to ski cautiously.