Heavy Snowfall

Wind Loading

The new snow seemed to be well behaved and staying in place on all the slopes I could see in White Pine. The trailhead was extremely crowded with lots of vehicles filling the parking lot and parked on the road. But as usual with the White Pine trailhead, it's the access point for a huge area and we found that people spread out quite well and we were even breaking trail to popular areas. Skiers and boarders were really getting after it on all the popular runs, even the steep and committing lines such as Red Baldy, Lake Peak, Birthday Chutes, Tri Chutes, etc. No one was triggering avalanches but just a few small stuffs within the new snow. By the afternoon there was quite a few point-release stuffs from heating on all the steep, sun exposed slopes. I could see lots of signs of previous wind loading along the high ridges and peaks but none in other areas but no one triggering slabs in those areas that I could see. I would call the hazard moderate because of the new snow and some wind loading in wind exposed terrain, plus some sluffs from heating. By tomorrow I would guess it will have settled out considerably.