It's that time of year when the sun is high in the sky and it's baking nearly all aspects and elevations. As a result we generally start to transition into a spring-like pattern and wet avalanche activity palys a major role. Wet avalanches are pretty straight-forward. As the day wares on and the snow heats up, like clockwork, the pack becomes damp and wet slides and sluffs 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.

A couple small wet sluffs on the steep south face of Currant Creek Peak were triggered on Wednesday. While mostly manageable in size, the debris setup like concrete in just a matter of seconds.

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.

The Gold Hill slide was quite an eye opener and both Ted and I were surprised at how weak the snow was in this region. While not widespread, we've both seen similar setups in both Chalk Creek and Millcreek. The snowpack in these areas never fully developed into a thick strong pack and it took a hard hit in January as the record cold temperatures helped to both rot away and then preserve weak sugary snow, especially in upper elevation, north facing terrain. Helping to hold this mess together is a thin heat crust formed two weeks ago during the big melt down and now, last weeks storm snow is heating up and becoming a dense slab. It's snowpack 101.... strong snow on weak snow. While not widespread our usual suspect terrain comes into play and should be avoided. You know the routine... steep, rocky, upper elevation slopes, especially those that have remained thin and shallow all season.

Ted points to last weeks heat crust which is helping to hold the snowpack together, but also acting like a slab. Underneath that the snowpack is a weak, sugary mess.