Our once solid, forgiving and easy-to-forecast snowpack has taken a 180° turn for the tricky. Here's what Monday's storm did for us: made for some nasty riding conditions, allowed the much talked about surface hoar to remain intact, and created a "bridge" in the form of a rain crust throughout the range.

This bridge is currently keeping our weight off the weaknesses in our snowpack. But, this isn't a modern steel frame bridge. This is the type of bridge you come across on an old de-activated logging road. It's missing a few planks and sagging badly on one side. You might be able to cross it no problem, but your buddy in the F-250 behind you might just push it to the breaking point. Guessing bridge strength is a nasty game, so, that's the reason for the pockets of Considerable hazard. In most places, the bridge is going to keep you from activating the facets, but, in places where the pack is just a bit thinner, i.e. near rock outcroppings, you might just punch through the bridge and trigger a slab avalanche. My advice is to give the big terrain a miss until we've had the opportunity to see how it reacts to a significant amount of water/storm snow.

Here's the thing about rain crusts; they're slippery. It's currently snowing an inch an hour at Trial Lake and the storm is expected to total about 9". Oddly enough, I don't expect the new snow to adhere very well to the existing snow surface. Most of the loose snow avalanches aren't going to be very deep, but, be heads up about gulley bottoms, avalanche runouts and terrain traps where a fast running loose snow avalanche could pack a more serious punch.

Winds are currently out of the S-SW at 30 mph gusting to 40 mph. Combine that with lite density snow, a slippery bed surface and you've got the perfect recipe for sensitive wind slabs. These fresh wind slabs in combination with the persistent slabs are tipping the avalanche class into the unmanageable category. My travel advice is to stick to the lower angle slopes well away from avalanche paths. The problem is that we're not going to get quite enough new snow to make the riding any good in these kinds of places. Be careful that your lust for powder doesn't push you into a dangerous situation.