I poked around above treeline today to assess the distribution of wind-drifted snow. I encountered some shallow drifts, but they were isolated and just below the upper elevation ridge lines. These shallow slabs are small, and are confined to the ridge lines. When I got down below the ridges there was no real wind slab to speak of.

This photo is the typical starting zone of the Horse Creek chutes with no wind slab present. The basket of my ski pole is sitting on a very hard crust, and the new snow is poorly bonded to the crust.

You should still be on the lookout for fresh drifts with the little bit of new snow and strong winds lately. It seems to me that most slopes in the alpine are good to go, but some slopes will have wind drifts that will crack out under the weight of a skier. If you are traveling in the alpine assess each slope on an individual basis. If the snow all of a sudden feels stiffer, or cracks beneath your skis, or cracks shoot out in front of your skis, you have found a wind drift.

It's going to take more of a load to wake up the buried weak layers in our snowpack, but make no mistake, our snowpack is a complete mess and weak snow is widespread. Alpine terrain is tricky right now. Many slopes consist of very hard wind-board overlying basal facets. This will take a serious load to produce avalanches. Some slopes in the alpine are not rock hard and have weak faceted snow layered with various crusts. It will be easier to initiate avalanches on these slopes if we see some sort of loading event. If this happens, the best strategy for the alpine may be avoidance, because it is hard to know which slopes hold the weaker structure.

The snow near treeline and below is very weak, and it won't take much to see some avalanches. Some slopes are faceted to the ground, and some still hold a bit of mid-pack cohesion. There is very weak snow just below the surface, and if it snows, we will see avalanches running on this layer first. Avalanches triggered on this layer can potentially step down to the basal facets if they entrain enough snow. And a bigger loading event can cause avalanches to fail on the basal facets. The photo below illustrates the two main layers of concern.

This is a North facing slope around 11,000 ft. Notice the very weak snow just below the surface. You can see the other weak layer of concern at the base of the pack. This is a protected slope, with no previous wind loading. There are no crusts present and the snowpack is faceted through. The most dense snow mid-pack is 4F+, the basal facets are F+.

This pit is from a NNE facing slope at 10,930'. This area had some previous wind loading and exposure to the sun during the long dry spell. The snowpack here has a couple more layers and crusts, but both weak layers of concern are present.