While there's not much snow to blow around, it never ceases to amaze me how winds can rip through terrain features and whip up just enough snow to create stiff wind drifts on the leeward side of upper elevation ridges. And while not particularly widespread, I suspect yesterdays wind also created a rogue pocket or two in the wind zone above treeline, cross-loading a random chute or gully feature. Sure, you'd really have to go out of your way to trigger an avalanche today, but it's certainly not impossible.

So, what do we do with generally stable snow and Green Light conditions? Of course, we set our sights on big objectives and tagging big terrain. However, before diving head first, pump the brakes for a second or two and evaluate each slope on an individual basis. If I'm in steep, committing terrain, I consider the consequences of triggering even a small slide which could knock me off me feet and instantly ruin my day.

Not much going on at the moment, but looking into the past and present helps us look into the future in terms of snow stability and right now we're focusing on snow surface temperatures which ricochet all over the map. Cold temperatures at night and warm temperatures during the day create very weak, faceted grains close to the snow surface and this is what we call Near Surface Facets (NSF). The NSF was capped and preserved by last Tuesday's few inches of snow. Mark found it last week around Soapstone... captured in the image above.