Upper elevations where the winds have been cranking and had plenty of snow available for transport onto steep, thin slopes has created unpredictable and dangerous slab avalanche conditions. The pack is not comfortable with the newest addition of weight and is feeling it in its buried weak layers nearest the ground.

One of the spots we zoomed in on was at 10,550” near Notch Mountain and found generally stable conditions. Despite good structure and a deep pack, we got moderate stability failure results near weak snow at the ground. On a Southwest slope at 9,200,’ the snow depth was 115cm. The poor structure was evident and produced moderate CT results, but no worthy ECT results in both pits.

We covered a lot of ground today and followed safe travel protocol by giving large slopes plenty of distance, and traveling one at a time in hazardous terrain. There is plenty of a great riding season left ahead of all of us, so we’ll continue to play it safe. Things seem to be doing well in the pack, but recent activity and poor structure in some places still has me feeling unsure about upper elevation slopes.

In the upper-elevations, exposed windward slopes have been stripped of this only to create dangerous windslab avalanche conditions on leeward slopes. Old wind slabs were noted on North through East aspects -- failing within 3”-6” from the surface as well as a past cornice failure observe on the Southeast face of Bald Mountain. Turbulent winds and plenty of snow to fetch have also left growing cornices guarding the ridgelines, beasts they rest…