A busy day today at Highwood Pass! Pretty much any ski-able terrain was heavily, heavily traveled. This inevitably forces people to look elsewhere for fresh turns. Be diligent with selecting un-skied terrain.
Winds today formed slabs in most open areas. These became more reactive as the day went on. Expect that trend to continue overnight and into tomorrow.
Steady temperatures around -8. Wind will fade a bit, dropping to 45km/hr from the west by tomorrow afternoon. No snow is forecasted, but don't be surprised if there are some local flurries rolling through the area.
Some old(24 hours) avalanches were note today. They were sz1.5-2, east aspect and below alpine cliffs.
New snow on Saturday and Sunday has buried the Nov 5 crust under 45-50cm of snow at treeline. So far it appears to be bonding OK, but previously wind scoured/exposed crust patches might have a worse bond with the new storm snow. Basically, its worth spending some time investigating it at the start of the day. Of more interest today was a facet layer down 40cm. Its thought this was the exposed surface during the last warm spell. In snow tests we had repeatable failures(CTM12 SC) on this layer today. The winds today transported a LOT of snow and windslabs are building at all elevations.
