Today’s stronger winds have snow to drift and blow around. Wind drifts, known as wind slabs, often look smooth and rounded, and when you find one, they can be cracky, denser and deeper than the surrounding snow. As the winds were getting well down into the low to mid elevations yesterday, look for drifts at all elevations, and cross-loaded along gully walls, mid slope break overs and sub ridges. Avoid any wind drifts on steep slopes. The winds are significantly stronger at the upper elevations, so be aware of steep wind drifted slopes above – natural avalanches are possible.

With fresh snow for the wind to move around, expect cornices to build along exposed ridgelines and terrain features today. These should be fairly sensitive and may break back further than you think they will. Give them a wide berth to avoid this problem.

If you plan on riding in the Monte Cristo area, where snow totals are higher, keep a sharp eye out for red flags like cracking or collapsing and avoid wind loaded steep slopes as buried weak layers may be more reactive to the increased load.

Buried faceted layers in the Ogden area snowpack are mostly dormant but, unfortunately, with faceted snow pesisting in the snowpack, mainly on NW, N, and NE facing slopes above 8500 feet, a small chance remains of triggering an avalanche into older snow. The added weight of wind drifted snow may be enough to tip the balanche on isolated slopes today. There is a lot of variability in the snowpack strength and depth, with facet layers both mid pack and near the ground. Slopes with a shallower snowpack tend to have weaker snow – including slopes that have slid one or more times this year.

The buried surface hoar from 25 February is still on the radar for us and found more prominently on the east side of the Ogden mountain valleys, i.e. Monte Cristo. Cracking and collapsing are bulls-eye clues to instability, but not always present.

A few small wet loose sluffs are possible on steep, sunny slopes with daytime heating.