Winds cranked along the high peaks all day Thursday, lingering into the early portion of Friday morning. Gusting into the 40's and 50's, west and northwest winds found plenty of snow to blow around, easily forming fresh drifts sensitive to the additional weight of a rider. Surprisingly, soft slabs formed not only on the leeward side of ridges, but also lower down slope than you might expect and around terrain features like chutes and gullies.
While generally manageable in size and depth and predictably breaking within the new storm snow, remember that if you’re getting into steep, sustained, technical terrain even a small slide could knock you off your feet or sled and take you for a nasty ride through trees or over a cliff band. Slope cuts on small test slopes like road cuts will give you a good barometer for the kind of avalanche dragon you're dealing with. Get some solid BETA by tweaking small slopes before charging into big terrain today.
Wind texturing like this can give you lots of clues. Here, the wind has been blowing left to right...
and depositing snow and forming sensitive drifts on the leeward side of gullies and chutes.