Toured West Porter to Main Porter Sunday and Monday. Toured Gobblers Knob Saturday. Been touring Mill Creek and Neffs continuously since Thanksgiving.

In general, the snow pack in this area is 5 feet deep in mid and upper elevations. Above about 8500 feet there is 3 to 6 inches of October snow on the ground that has compacted and rounded but is still relatively weak and sugary. Above this there is 2 to 3 feet of snow that fell from November to early January and is basically a cohesive slab of relatively hard snow. The storm cycle that began Jan 16 and ended after MLK day added aobut 50 inches of snow that has now compacted to about 2 feet and sits in two distict layers, the first is the Jan 15 surface layer, about 2 feet down, and the second is the Jan 20 surface layer, about 1 foot down. Columns the past week have been failing on both these layers. The Feb 1 surface layer was faceted as much as 6 inches down with spectacular quarter inch feathers in the usual locations such as along Mill Creek. The surface feathers settled and rounded with the spring-like weather preceding the current storm cycle, but they are still quite weak. Not more than 6 inches of snow has fallen at mid and upper elevations in Porter Fork as of 3pm Monday since the storm began Saturday, but the winds have been very gusty and seemingly continuous since Saturday.

The area I traveled Monday was generally low angle and wind sheltered and the hazard seemed low. I am avoiding the steep lines off the wind exposed ridges because I expect they are wind loaded and will avalanche when provoked by a skier. The fact that I am avoiding these lines makes me think the overall hazard is considerable.

NWS forecast for upper Porter Fork is 4 inches overnight Monday and 5 to 9 inches during the day Tuesday with continuous wind gusting to 40 mph. If this forecast verifies so there is about a foot of new snow Tuesday with strong winds the hazard will surely be considerable, possibly high.

Avalanches failing in new wind drifted snow and stepping down seem likely. My plan for the next few days is to continue avoiding steep windloaded terrain, particularly avalanche paths with ridge-top wind loaded start zones.