With an overall stable snowpack and the primary avalanche problem being wet snow issues, I was looking at the snow underneath the frozen crusts at the surface. On some steep south and west aspects, the crusts were 40-40 cms thick with damp grains underneath. However, on a south/southeast aspect at top of the Emma Ridges just below 10,000', Dave Richards (director of the avalanche program at Alta) got a collapse on a 10-cm (4") thick frozen slab on top of dry snow. The crack propagated about 60', and in a few different directions. What was interesting was finding such dry snow not too far beneath the snow surface. With warmer temperatures and strong sunshine forecasted, this introduces the potential for wet slab avalanches where the slab of wet snow fails on weak snow underneath.

Danger is Low in the morning, rising to Moderate by late morning as the snow surface takes on heat.