West Slopes South

Relatively quiet weather and a strong, stable snowpack should provide generally safe avalanche conditions. Any avalanche you encounter should be very small, relatively inconsequential, and isolated to higher elevation shaded slopes.

Cloudy skies, cool temperatures, light winds, and no additional precipitation will only help an already strong and stable snowpack stay that way. Sunday night’s storm brought 2-3 inches of snow to the West South zone. While that’s a nice fresh coat of paint, it wasn’t enough to create any real avalanche concerns. Moderate to strong winds likely blew the new snow around and may have even created a few tiny wind slabs higher in the mountains. These slides probably won’t be much larger than a dining room table. Most sheltered north facing terrain still harbors soft dry snow. The question is how much? In wind prone areas, it may be quite variable. In other locations, you might find 4-10 inches of settled powder. On very steep slopes, this soft snow could sluff with you. 

There are a few common threads to both the tiny wind slabs and small loose dry avalanches.

1. These slides would be most likely in shaded terrain above about 6000 ft, where the surface snow is lighter and drier. 
2. Any avalanche could run far on an underlying firm crust. 
3. While these slides should be small, don’t let them surprise you in higher consequence terrain. 

On southerly slopes, sunny skies on Monday likely started to transform the few inches of new snow. This should freeze Monday night and result in a new crust. This layer could be firm and icy or breakable and frustrating, depending on your location in the zone, aspect, and slope angle. Cloudy skies on Tuesday mean this layer shouldn’t soften much, if at all. 

Though shallow, the upper snowpack is starting to build a few layers. The 3/29 interface is at the base of the new snow. This changes from a firm crust to breakable to soft old snow as you move around the compass from S to N. Below, there’s the unmistakable 3/25 crust. This layer is a foot or more thick, hard enough to break your shovel, and basically new ground. It’s largely responsible for our stable snowpack and low danger. 

The recent snow certainly helped travel conditions, but did very little to change the overall poor coverage. Conditions area particularly bad at lower elevations and on southerly aspects where there may be no snow at all. Elsewhere, open creeks, random holes, downed logs, and exposed rocks make travel long and winding. Be patient and plan some extra time to deal with the travel hazards.