My goal for today's tour north on the park city ridge line was to find out how the last few days of SW wind have pushed around the available snow. We traveled over many different snow surfaces from scoured ridge lines, breakable wind crust, sastrugi, and stout wind slab. We were also able to see many recent avalanches mostly on north/east aspects above 9000ft. The weather remained over cast during our tour from 12pm to 345pm. Winds started out light to moderate out of the south west and ended calm to light by the time we were leaving. Snow fall at a rate of s-1 began around 2pm and started teetering on s1 as we skied back into the canyons.

During the tour we headed towards powder park one to check out the slide that had occurred the day prior. The slide didn't travel far because the lower slope angle but left behind impressive wind slab debris. A quick hand pit on a similar north aspect up the ridge at 9600 feet revealed that the wind from the last few days has created a 1F slab in various thickness around the ridge line on the north half of the compass. Many of our ski runs started out as firm slabby snow until we dropped far enough off the ridge to more sheltered terrain where good turns can be found.

The bottom line is with more snow on the way we will have increased avalanche danger. If we get good wind speeds and enough water weight from this storm these new slabs could be stressed enough to break into old snow creating large avalanches.

photo 1 is a picture of the January 28th avalanche in powder park one. The wind slab reminds me of the cross bedding seen in many desert sandstones where sand has been deposited from the wind.

photo 2 is of a small natural avalanche in the mother-in-law slide path. It probably released sometime on the 28th. Looked to be SS-N-R1-D1 about 25 feet wide and ran into the gully at the bottom. Crown height was difficult to tell but the slide ran at least 200 feet. Note the scoured ridge line above.