Thursday's new snow fell onto the ubiquitous refrozen rain crust from the previous weekend. This crust is thick, mostly refrozen, and confidence inspiring. Above 8000 feet, the crust is quite slick in many places, and edging can be difficult. The new snow is not well bonded enough to keep an climbing skier from slipping sideways in these places, so use caution on steep slopes. Having said that, the new snow also has very little internal cohesion, so the lack of strong bonding to the crust did not present a slab avalanche hazard today, because there simply were no "slab" characteristics to the snow. We were on the alert for sluffing due to this incohesion, but observed only a very small amount, even in terrain approaching 40 degrees. Today was the kind of day you dream about: soft new snow with a bomber, widespread crust underneath. Wednesday night's wind had virtually no snow available to transport, so there were no wind slabs lurking underneath. It was a beautiful day for skiing. Fat boards definitely improved the riding quality, since the new snow didn't offer much support to keep you up off the crust. But if you had the right tools, it felt bottomless up high. In the mid elevations there wasn't much you could do to stay off the crust, but it was also less icy so it still rode well.

Tomorrow (Saturday) could see rising avalanche hazard, however due to rapid warming. I would be alert to cohesion developing in the new snow producing more potentional for slab behavior, or if the temps go straight through the roof, all of the incohesive snow that didn't sluff today might start moving in loose snow avalanches with the appearance of water in the top few inches. While these hazards could be widespread, they will be limited to the new snow (no danger of stepping down... anywhere) and should be predictable. The hazard could go to Considerable in terms of probability (depending on how high temps go) but should be moderate in terms of how much punch it packs