Our PWL (persistent weak layer) of facets from the December drought is generally buried 2-5' deep and is easy to find by digging down with your shovel on west to north to southeast facing slopes. It is becoming more difficult to trigger these hard slabs in deeper snowpack areas, particularly in the upper Cottonwoods. Cracking and collapsing are rare these days, but Sunday's close call on Gobbler's (S.Donovon pic) and yesterday's natural in Mineral Fork tell the tale. If you're looking for trouble, you'll probably find it in steep, thin, rocky terrain. Another tip: don't put any faith in other tracks on the slope: such is the nature of hard slabs over a persistent weak layer of faceted grains.

With clear skies and a marginal refreeze, wet avalanches will become a problem early today, starting on east then south then west and eventually some northwest facing slopes. In steep, sustained and confined terrain, some of these wet avalanches will run fast and far and easily lead to significant debris piles. In some areas, much more destructive wet slab avalanches may occur, from either being pried out by wet loose sluffs from above, or - in some cases - melt water percolating down to structural interfaces (density changes and/or facets and crusts).

Travel advice: If you see pinwheels and rollerballs and are finding the snow start to become unsupportable, move on to low angle terrain or cooler aspects.

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