Beautiful day for a long exploratory tour. Snow on west and north aspects above tree line showed very developed and firm sastrugi with large smooth patches of hard wind slab interspersed. These will become excellent sliding surfaces for the new snow on the way. We looked into Colorado bowl and saw several high mark snowmobile tracks with no obvious releases on NE faces 30+ degrees.

Skiing in the trees was still three dimensional, but there were still a few pockets of soft snow in low angle open terrain. The October base is still surprisingly supportable in places.

Heavy new snow and wind this week could ramp up the avy hazard in these areas rapidly.