Dug a hole on a NE aspect, 39 degree slope around 10,400 feet. Depth was about 140cm, the bulk of which is our pre-Christmas slab, with the new snow sitting on a thin crust, and the whole snowpack resting on around 7-10cm of 1-3mm facets. Could not get a failure near the ground, but in areas with a shallower snowpack, I could still see the low-probability/high-consequence nightmare coming true. I think areas affected by the East wind from last week are particularly suspect here...

As was forecasted today, this was my main concern as I walked around the Brighton perimeter today. Was especially concerned with any windblown snow from Thursday night that was plastered onto either the rime crust that formed Thursday afternoon/evening, or onto NSF of an old bed surface...seems like we need some more wind to turn this into a more widespread problem, but the reports that Mark highlighted this morning are definitely a preview of coming attractions if we get some prolonged wind.