Pro: The weather is friendly and forgiving with warm temperatures and little wind.
Con: The travel is rough going pretty much anywhere.
Just as you transition from treeline into the alpine watch for wind slabs. Lee and cross-loaded features are the main areas of concern.
This problem will be with us all season. At higher elevations there is more concern that these deep persistent weak layers could be human triggerable.
Nothing new observed in the last couple of days.
Today's adventure took us up to 2300m in the Dog Leg area. Lots of wind effect in the alpine. It looks like nothing has been spared from the winds of the last week. It felt as though the Dec 6th crust was up to 2300m, but to be honest, given the travel conditions, it was hard to not be on a bulletproof windslab. At treeline, we did notice a series of windslabs that have built up over top of the crust. These were mostly in immediate lee areas, and mildly concerning given what's underneath. It seems the crust is breaking down quickly given the shallow snowpack. Up to about 2000m we were breaking through in open areas. Between 2000m and 2300m it was supportive, but much thinner than last week.
Not much changing in our weather pattern these days. Tomorrow will be a carbon copy of today. Morning low of -5, high of -2. Light winds from the SW and no snow.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
