Apparently we have been focusing our prayers on More Snow and not enough on Less Wind! As anticipated, 8+ inches of snow fell today, and the winds were cranking out of the west/NW, so much so that we were losing our skin track each run despite it being somewhat sheltered in Yellow Jacket. The snow that came in seemed pretty light - as was the snow that fell earlier in the week - so there was plenty to blow around. The ridge above was blown hard, and the leeward Toots and other Alexander Chutes on up to Depth Hoar bowl were getting lots of loading, and slabs were developing on/just off the ridge.
We were able to do one skin on a bit of a southerly aspect and it seemed like the new snow was bonding fairly well to the earlier-in-the-week sun crust, but with so much wind loading (especially on the many ridges around that are so much higher and more exposed) I would not trust that, so at least temporarily our safe(r) refuge of south facing will be skitchy as well with lots of top and cross wind loading; ie 8" of new could easily result in 2-3 feet on the south/east lee aspects.
On the non-sunny aspects it seemed that there was an early-storm layer that the rest of the storm snow wanted to slide off of. I have no doubt that we coulda triggered a good, big slide today had we tried to. And the winds were so blustery that they seemed to be swirling around the drainage.
Additionally, it's important to note that slides that have happened in the past while - Gobbler's, Bowman, Square Top, Birthdays, Monitors (of course) etc that went to the ground are now getting a quick reload onto a slick and chunky bed surface.
