I observed moderate to intense snow transport all day long. Ridgetop winds were shifting directions and loading a variety of aspects. Expect to find fresh, sensitive drifts on all aspects ATL on Wednesday. Northerly aspects were previously loaded and appeared fat, rounded, and pillowy. Almost all leeward slopes above treeline were very obviously loaded.

The small slide just right of center is a small pocket of wind drifted snow that ripped out above Tele Gold. If you look closely you can see a crown. Also, look how fat and pillowy the slopes are above and below this slide.

The slope in the center of this photo is another great example of an obviously wind loaded slope. This is what we mean when we say "fat, round, and pillowy." Any steep slope that looks like this should be avoided.

I spent Monday and Tuesday hunting for weak layers in the recent new snow. The La Sals have received about 15" of new snow in the last week. On Monday I dug on a North facing slope at 10,800 ft. I got a CT25 RP down 40 cm on a layer of preserved Stellars. Today I had a chance to investigate this further. On an East facing slope at 10,230 ft I located this same layer of buried Stellars 50 cm below the surface. On this layer I got CT22 RP, CT 15 RP, ECTX. So no propagation on an Extended Column Test. This layer is very hard to detect in the pit wall, and only reveals itself with shovel shears, compression tests, or shovel tilt tests. With shovel tilts, it required Hard force to produce a shear. The bottom line is this is a weak interface within storm snow layers. As time goes on, I expect it to become harder to produce failures on this layer. I did not observe any facets associated with this layer, or anywhere in the upper 100 cm of the pack. HS at today's East facing pit in the Gold Basin Moraines was 315 cm. (The slope is clearly wind drifted).

I also checked out a SSW aspect at 10,700 to see if I could find any weak interfaces. At this location I found strong snow F-4F-1F in the top of the pack with no weak interfaces. I did two compression tests with no failures (CTN x2). HS here is 270 cm.

SSW aspect showing strong snow.

CT22 RP down 50cm on buried Stellars, East aspect 10,230 ft.