Wind Drifted Snow

Same

I had been watching the Pre Laurel weather station yesterday, and after checking it again today, I'm sure wind loading is a concern up above tree line. We did not encounter any wind loading in corkscrew today. This terrain is low and mid elevation. Winds were out of the SE overnight and this morning, and I expected to see fresh wind drifts in upper corkscrew. We even skied the open shot on the far skiers left that faces WNW and to our surprise it was not wind loaded.

New Snow

Decreasing Danger

The new snow is medium density, and up to a foot deep in some places. On the more northerly aspects the new snow was well bonded to the old snow surface. I conducted some quick hand shears on SW faces on the way out to corkscrew and got relatively easy shears between the new and old snow interface. There is a firm base layer on this aspect. I wouldn't be surprised to see sluffs running in steeper terrain on this aspect. On northerly aspects the old snow is soft and well bonded to the new snow. I skied across some steep North facing test slopes with no results. I think any potential storm slabs problems could linger for one more day before stabilizing. Today I did not find any of the recrystallized old snow beneath the new snow surface. Based on my travels before this storm, I still think in the upper elevations you could find weaker, recrystallized old snow underneath the new snow on North and East aspects.