Yesterdays winds found enough snow to blow around and form fresh drifts along the leeward side of upper elevation ridges facing the north half of the compass. While not widespread and not overly sensitive, today's warming temperatures might be the wild card... helping to stiffen the snow up a bit, making it more cohesive and slabby. In big, committing terrain you might want to continue avoiding fat, rounded pillows of snow, especially if they sound hollow like a drum.

Ted was up on Lofty Lake Peak Monday and grabbed this image illustrating wind transport in upper elevation terrain.

The west and southwest winds also cross-loaded terrain features like the gullies and chutes pictured above.

Cornices will become more tender with warming temperatures and may break back a little further than you might expect. Probably best to steer clear of these unpredictable pieces of snow.

With strong sunshine and rising temperatures the cold snow of the past few days will get baked today. As the day wares on and the snow heats up, like clockwork, wet avalanches will become more widespread on steep, sunny slopes. If you're feeling like an ant under a magnifying glass... so is the snow. During the heat of the day, steer clear of terrain traps like gullies and road cuts, where even a small slide can pile up cement-like debris very deeply.

Gullies like these pictured above are what we call terrain traps and should be avoided as the day heats up.