Tetons

Several days of strong southwest to northwest winds have created new wind deposited slabs to a foot in depth on leeward slopes at the mid and upper elevations. These new wind deposits have added an additional load to existing surface slabs which are up to two feet in depth. In addition deep slab instabilities persist especially on steep shaded northerly aspects. These newly deposited windslabs could be triggered by a single skier or snowboarder and have the potential to step down and trigger large hard slab avalanches especially on northerly aspects and in cliffy areas with localized weak zones. The greatest hazard is to extreme skiers, boarders and snowmobilers who venture into steep wind loaded couloirs, chutes, cliff areas and hanging snowfields. Yesterday a skier triggered a sizable slab in Once Is Enough. With new snow and strong wind forecasted the hazard will increase as the day progresses. At the lower elevations isolated pockets of slab could be human triggered in the starting zones of steep wind loaded avalanche paths.