Field work and yesterday's avalanches failing near the ground show that with an additional snow load - in this case drifts of wind blown snow - the loose, sugary depth hoar near the ground is just waiting for a trigger, and can fail with the added weight of a person. With hard slab drifts on facets, avalanches can be stubborn, and break out above you, and be triggered from a distance and from below. Photo - Brian Pollick pointing down to the weak faceted snow 16" down.

Steep slopes where the two combine - new wind drifts over depth hoar - will be the most dangerous today, the most likely place to trigger a slide today, and should be avoided. This combo will be most common on northerly facing slopes, above about 9,000'.

The moderate to strong southeasterly winds have eroded snow and deposited it both along the high ridge lines and into drifts in some of the mid elevation terrain. Terrain channels the wind in strange ways, so while the southeast winds put most of the drifts on northerly and westerly facing slopes, there could be isolated drifts on other aspects, too, especially along the high ridge lines and in open, upper elevation bowls, including well off the ridge lines. Avoid any steep slope with recent wind drifts.

Most of these drifts are cracky hard slabs - they will feel solid and supportable underfoot, but can still break and avalanche on steep slopes. So what's a hard slab? Check outCraig's Uinta observation from yesterday - dense, tightly packed wind blown snow that's hard and stays in chunks after it avalanches.