With all the ferocious winds over the past couple days, there is no lack of wind slabs in downwind terrain. These range from soft to hard and they exist mostly on east through south facing slopes along ridge lines. As always, avoid all slopes about 34 degrees or steeper with recent wind drifts. I'm guessing the wind slabs will settle out fairly quickly and the by tomorrow, the main problem will be the persistent slabs, because they are, well, persistent.

I can't decide whether persistent slabs or wind slabs are the most dangerous right now. The persistent slabs will break about 2-3 feet deep to a layer of faceted snow formed on the snow surface during the first part of January. This layer is quite inconsistent and spatially variable, but I can still find many areas where it's still sensitive and still propagates a fracture easily on an Extended Column Test. We saw one large avalanche today that broke on this layer.

These slabs are stubborn and inconsistent, so they will linger into the weekend. I suspect we will hear about some human triggered avalanches on this layer and I hope everyone comes home OK. They are the classic, low probability-high consequence avalanche. They may let several people jump on them before they break and take out many tracks. Persistent slabs have to be matched with equally persistent patience.