Tuesday's dense snow and winds have buffed out the snow surface making for excellent travel and riding conditions. I did find a few pockets of fresh wind drifts, but they were unreactive to ski cuts.

The windy storm on Tuesday created conditions that reminds me of the day in April 2013 when UDOT avalanche forecaster Craig Patterson was killed in an avalanche on Kessler Peak. The isolated pockets of fresh wind drifts are sitting on top of a softer layer of graupel and this is on top of a slick melt-freeze crust that was the old snow surface. Getting caught in a small avalanche involving a wind drift that fails in the graupel and runs on the slick crust as a bed surface where it would be difficult to self-arrest could be consequential in very steep, rocky terrain.