We found primarily stable snow in our travels, and this was mainly because we wanted to ride powder and soft snow. A lot of the upper elevation terrain has been wind blasted and sastrugi will be the common theme along ridges and upper elevation open slopes. There was a lot of wind damage above about 9,000'. However, we found soft, settled snow in sheltered mid-elevation northerly facing slopes.

We discussed the main problem being wind slabs. Our strategy was to avoid the upper 100-200 feet off the ridge. We said if you're in powder there is no wind slab and therefore no avalanche issues. We still made some conservative choices and cautiously entered upper start zones. But, once we hit powder snow, we let em rip.