Heavy Snowfall

Wind Loading

The only avalanche concerns were within the new snow, which was about a foot deep over the past couple days. The snow seemed to be staying in place fairly well but stuffing on the steep, small rollovers we encountered. The weakest layer was near the base of the new snow in some sort of lower density layer or graupel. It seemed to be bonded to the frozen surface fairly well. It was not particularly sensitive to ski cuts on small test slopes, just stuffing. We went up to about 10,000' and it was fairly windy above that elevation with squalls coming through. We did not encounter any wind slabs where we were but I could see some forming in the upper elevation alpine terrain. I would be very suspicious of wind loaded slopes breaking within the new snow.