Cement Creek to Star Pass

The snowpack in sheltered areas is similar to places closer to Crested Butte.  A weak, faceted snowpack that largely lacks a slab avalanche problem outside of a very isolated surface slab from recent winds.  Dry Loose avalanches would be the primary issue on steep shady slopes out of the wind.

The alpine has been destroyed by frequent winds over the past two weeks.  Hard slabs can be found plastered around the landscape.  They might be difficult to release, but they would make for a nasty ride.  You'd be hard-pressed to find quality riding conditions at upper elevations in this area.  It looks to have been harder hit by the winds than areas in the Northwest Mountains.

In sheltered areas, the snowpack is a weak faceted mess on the north half of the compass.  Boot pen is to the ground, and snowmobiling requires a delicate touch.  Open areas showed some signs of wind effect, but I didn't see any noteworthy slab formation along the valley bottom.

Upper-elevation terrain resembles a post-apocalyptic windy wasteland.  Most aspects are a mix of scouring and hard slab formation in leeward places, sometimes below ridges and ribs or pressed into concave features.  West aspects showed the most scouring, with slab formation behind cross-loaded ribs.  I snowmobile across many hard slabs on small features without cracking or collapsing.  I dug a profile on a south slope to examine the structure in a sizeable hard slab on a thinner edge of the slab. I found hard propagating results on the January weak layer and a result on the December drought layer with extra loading steps (see image).  Releasing one of these hard slabs looks difficult but not impossible.