There will be an increasing danger for avalanches involving wind-drifted snow on Wednesday. In some isolated areas on shady slopes near treeline and below, slabs of wind-drifted snow will avalanche easily on a very sensitive layer of weak, sugary, faceted snow. This layer exists just a few inches below the snow surface, but it is very spotty in its distribution. It showed up in just 2 out of 10 shallow pits I dug today. However, it deserves our attention because once we get a slab on top, it will very easily produce avalanches.

This photo shows the very obvious weak layer just a few inches down. The crown of the avalanche is seen in the background.

I was able to locate this weak snow in the Middle Cirque Glades as well.

While poking around in the snow, I also found some other weak layers of note.

The layer of 0.5mm facets produced clean shears in the pit wall

The layer of buried surface hoar also produced clean shears in the pit wall. This is the first buried surface hoar I have seen since Eric found some in the Lower Exxon's Moraines on 2/16. I do not think this buried SH is widespread, but it is interesting nonetheless.

Large feathers of buried Surface Hoar.