Ski quality varies from awful in wind-exposed areas to passable in sheltered spots. Be cautious of lingering wind slabs, and continued facetting of the surface snow, which may sluff easily in extreme terrain.
Lingering hard wind slabs exist on alpine lee features. Potential failure planes are old weak facet layers or the Jan 30 layer of facets, sun crusts, and isolated surface hoar beneath the recent snow.
On Saturday, Sunshine Ski Area reported a small, loose dry cycle out of extreme terrain in the adjacent backcountry, likely caused by the sun. They also had some small results (size 1.5) with explosives of cornice-triggered wind slabs. Another cornice failed outside the boundary, and a small windslab was triggered again.
Last week's storm snow has been redistributed into now aging wind slabs, which sit on top of the Jan 30 interface. Specific areas exposed to the wind may also have strastrugi. The mid-pack is generally weak with facets, while depth hoar over a crust forms on an even weaker base. The snowpack is the weakest in eastern areas where snow depths are low. In these areas, the basal weaknesses should be carefully considered. Here is a representative snow profile taken on Wednesday
Sunday: 2-4 cm with light SE winds and -15C at treeline for most of the day. The trend of no snow in the long-term forecast continues.
