With soaring temperatures today, the danger for loose wet slide activity will increase on sun exposed slopes. Look for signs of instability such as roller balls or pinwheels, and of course, natural, loose wet slide activity. Stay off of and out from under steep, sun exposed slopes if any of these signs are present, or if the snow is wet and sloppy over your boot tops.

In our travels through the high country on Thursday, Manti-Skyline forecaster Brett Kobernik and I found generally stable snow conditons. As always however, low danger doens't mean no danger and here are a few things to consider when traveling in avalanche terrain.

Wind Slab: Extreme, upper elevation, wind exposed terrain still harbors the occasional wind slab. If you push into this type of terrain, carefully evaluate wind rolls, and hard, hollow feeling slabs.

Persistent Slab: In general, snowpits and stabilty tests have shown a stabilization of the early February, faceted weak layer. We did however, run across an area of very weak snow on a NE aspect around 11,500'. The slope was a repeat running slide path in an alpine bowl, and it appeared to be the exception rather than the rule. But if you find yourself contemplating a steep line on a northerly facing aspect, probe around with your pole for underlying weak facets. If you find them, and there is a slab on top, reconsider your slope selection.

Weak, faceted snow still exists in isolated areas. Close up photo by Brett Kobernik.