New and old wind drifts exist on many aspects now at the mid and upper elevations. Some are stubborn and hard; others are shallow and soft. Steep wind drifted terrain should continue to be avoided for another day. The usual bag of tricks for soft wind slabs do not work effectively for hard wind slabs. In other words, cornice drops and ski cuts can be misleading at best and dangerous at worst. I imagine we'll have a couple more human triggered wind drifts to talk about tomorrow. The majority of these drifts are in upper elevation northerly through easterly aspects but others are scattered around the compass in the mid-elevations due to terrain channeling.

Human triggered large avalanches into much older snow layering 3-6'+ deep are possible in localized areas and particularly dangerous in heavily wind loaded terrain. In general, these avalanches are likely to be triggered by a heavy load such as a cornice fall, new snow avalanches stepping down to older layers, or an explosive. Or being unlucky enough in finding the thinner trigger spot in the slab. Terrain that has avalanched previously (repeater slopes) or other thinner snowpack areas are not to be trusted. Cracking and collapsing rarely play a role here. More significant natural avalanches from likely Thursday or Friday noted in the Mill Canyon area. Powderbird photo below.