By far, the most dangerous situation is in the upper elevation northerly facing terrain where old weak snow is now capped off with 2 to 3 feet of new snow. Human triggered avalanches will be likely through this weekend in the higher terrain. Slopes that avalanched in December are especially suspect as they have a VERY shallow and weak snowpack. This is a dangerous situation because people can travel on a lot of different slopes without triggering anything or seeing any obvious signs of instability. This may give people a false sense of security and then decide to get onto more northerly facing terrain. Make no mistake that this a bad deal.

The newest snow on it's own is stabilizing and it will become less likely that someone triggers an avalanche that breaks just within the new snow. However, with direct sun today, the new snow may become damp and unstable. It is hard to predict when wet avalanche activity will occur but there are a couple of factors in place that point to dangerous conditions. First, a bunch of fresh snow and second, direct springtime sun on the new snow. With quite a bit of new snow, wet avalanches could be fairly large if they start happening. Stay off of and out from underneath steep sunny slopes as they heat up and become damp.