Went to South Monitor thinking yesterday’s load was not enough to send it over the edge but Wednesday storm should. I was getting cracking and collapsing on the ridge line whenever I walked across obvious wind slabs, I also got a nice shooting crack just below the Ridgeline in the top of the bowl. I entered the bowl where there was no visible wind loading on the more protected skiers left side, and carefully cut into the bowl, it was obvious at this point that there was no wind slab and the main bowl consisted of light density snow sitting on a fairly stout crust. I was also a bit surprised at the lack of sluffing in steeper terrain. I dug a quick pit at around 9000ft in a shady sheltered N facing area and noted multiple crust facet sandwiches. I tried to find any buried surface hoar that formed before the storm but in the terrain covered it seemed to be destroyed by pre-frontal winds.

photos: cracking and collapsing in the wind loaded top of the bowl, and the snow pit.

I think the hazard was moderate in high windloaded terrain and might go to considerable if the wind and snow play out tomorrow