Pockets of soft and hard slabs of wind drifted snow exist in the upper elevations on many aspects. These may be increasingly stubborn to trigger, but don't rule out triggering one of these in steep, localized terrain features. In his field work, Greg Gagne and his partner were finding hard slabs of wind drifted snow reactive in snow tests and elected to remain on low angle terrain.

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Lingering "new snow" instabilities: We have had a lot of snow over the last few weeks and there are areas where we are finding decomposing stellar crystals, buried ice crusts, rime crusts, and isolated areas of faceted snow buried 1-3' from the surface and it's a good reminder that strange weather (like above average snowfall) leads to strange avalanches. There is a possibility of triggering an isolated avalanche on a new/old snow interface that is buried 1-3' from the surface. The solar aspects, particularly southeasterly facing slopes are acting more like a northerly aspect.

Both wet and dry loose new snow avalanches may be expected in steep terrain. You may find these to run far and gather mass on the slick underlying crusts from Saturday.

Spring time in the mountains means that things can change quickly and there can be an assortment of avalanche problems within an hour or an aspect of one another. It is a good time to year to be willing to adapt and change your plan if the weather or snow conditions change.