Rapidy warming temperatures and - initially - direct sun wil rapidly destabilize the recent 8-12" of storm snow on east then south then westerly facing aspects. These wet sluff and potentially wet slab avalanches will run fast and far on the slick underlying crusts with wet concrete-like debris piling up deeply in runout zones below. Pinwheels, rollerballs and damp sluffs will be early indicators of instability. Be very aware of changing conditions within the snow as it becomes damp and unstable - DO NOT OVERSTAY YOUR WELCOME ON THE STEEP SOLAR ASPECTS. Plan your day accordingly.

*This should be your guidance heading into the morning. The cloud cover streaming in from the west today provides uncertainty on how this will affect the snow surfaces. The mid and upper level clouds may shield the snow from the full blast of the sun; and/or the clouds may provide for "greenhousing". This may accentuate the wet activity even on some lower elevation northerly terrain.

The January/February drought resulted in very weak facets along the snow surfaces and it was clear that once it started snowing in earnest, we would have avalanches. The problem is that although it has snowed, it hasn't snowed in earnest, so that the avalanches, although widespread (pretty much all of the north part of the compass at all elevations) are relatively small and pockety. But relatively small and pockety can still kill you, especially if you're hungry for powder and especially if you're surprised by the avalanche, which is common whenever avalanches can be triggered at a distance.

My observation in Broads Fork on Friday looks at this more of this uncertainty in depth HERE.

While many people are finding pockets of unstable snow (a dozen in the past two days), many people are not. Greg Gagne and his partner traveled all over Raymond and Gobblers yesterday and found weak snow but did not find unstable avalanche conditions. Nor did Bill Nalli in Cardiff Fork.

• If the game is rigged, choose not to play. In other words, owing to the high uncertainty and the nature of the problem, choose low angle slopes with nothing steep above. We rode low angle northerly terrain on Friday and it was the best in two months.
• Choose aspects that do not harbor the PWL: we know that northwest through east aspects harbor the PWL. West is uncertain and variable. Southwest to south to southeast do not harbor the PWL and these aspects will ride nearly as well today.