Moderate to strong southwest winds have been blowing for several days. While there hasn't been a ton of snow available for transport in the Provo zone, drifts at higher elevations are still out there.

These winds have been effective at building drifts of snow adjacent to ridgelines, as well as on wind-exposed mid-slope features such as gullies, rolls, and rock bands. Be on the lookout for a change in density of the snow you're traveling through: if the surface snow is suddenly deeper or stiffer, you've likely found a wind-loaded area. This will be most common on upper W-N-SE aspects, but wind-exposed mid-elevation terrain isn't out of the question.

Wind-drifted snow avalanches will be effective triggers for releasing a deeper, larger avalanche on our persistent weak layer (see below).

A strong over weak snowpack structure persists, with old, weak snow near the ground and at the middle of the snowpack.

The snowpack has handled the modest stress of the past week well, even with warm temperatures and small amounts of snowfall. Still, the structure persists. While coverage and access remains a crux, the terrain with the most appealing snow coverage to ride—higher, steep, northerly wind-loaded terrain—is where you're most likely to trigger an avalanche. We haven't gotten much feedback—cracking or collapsing—from the snowpack in over a week. However, a quiet snowpack isn't always a stable one.

A poor, strong over weak snowpack structure Nikki and I observed near Pole Line Pass yesterday.