Went out today to get re-acquainted with the snowpack after being gone for a few weeks that completely changed the snowpack (and get a few nice turns). It seemed like the most recent snows are the "only" issue, but as Drew pointed out, there were a few booby traps out there. We were able to ge the unusual opportunity to put the skinner in up the Flagstaff ridge, and basically saw that the west wind was creating some wind slabs that wanted to break free but only did so on the steep rolls on the ridge; ie at or above 38 degrees, but they either stopped or quickly died out to sluffs as they hit lower-angle terrain below; it was nice to be able to test the slope angle sensitivity on the varying rolls going up that ridge. On the west-facing shot - ie more windward - the new snow was not as deep, and we could feel the crust that was making for a nice sliding surface. Generally it seemed that the same deal was happening on the NW facing Holy Toledo, albeit with a different mechanism (not necessarily a sun crust).

But what happened today is not nearly as important as what's going to happen on Wednesday and the rest of the week with the new snow coming in. The sun got to the south facing slopes, and I'm not sure how the pile o' new snow is going to react with that: good bond? crush it down to some insulated colder snow above the sun crust? And then loading up the non-sunny slopes that are already kinda slabby with a buncha snow and the dratted wind could make for slab over slab over slick surface.....eek.