Travel today was from the upper parking lot of Solitude up to USA Bowl S facing for a run then on to South Monitor. South facing USA had a hard melt freeze crust underlying the new snow and was a bit wind affected in the top portion, the bottom could be felt with aggressive turns but not much if you went fast and didn't crank turns to hard, the wind slab up high kept you of the bottom in the top of the bowl. Headed over to South Monitor to have a look after the run in USA, I was thinking it would be wind affected and a bit suspect after I looked at the wind speeds from yesterday and last night but was pleasantly surprised when we looked into the bowl and saw no apparent wind damage or wind slabs. I slid into the skiers right side of the bowl and pole probed the starting zone, the probing revealed 12 inches of light density new snow on a spongy base, once again, no slab no slides. My thinking is the wind slabs were at a higher elevation and on slopes that are loaded by a NW flow, mainly S, SE. Seems like LCC got the mother lode of snow out of this storm and I could see slopes in that upper elevation zone being a bit more suspect, I would think most of the wind slabs have settled out and the main concern tomorrow will be wet slides on the slick melt freeze crust on the S end of the compass. Exiting out of Willow around 3pm the snow was damp but not exceedingly damp, it will probably have a zipper crust tomorrow that will soften rapidly.

photos: small cornice drop in South Monitor reveals light density snow with no slab formation

going with moderate for wet activity tomorrow and maybe some lingering wind slabs on the high ridge lines