Despite a not-so-encouraging forecast, there is some good skiing to be had. Conservative terrain at treeline seems to be the place to go.
Weather Forecast
Cloudy with sunny periods and isolated flurries tomorrow. High temp of -7. Winds increasing slightly tomorrow, west at 40km/hr.
Avalanche Summary
Poor visibility today but we did see a couple of smaller avalanches from the previous cycle. The most notable was an older sz2 that likely ran on the Dec15 layer.
Snowpack Summary
Flurries continued overnight and throughout today. Amounts added up to about 5cm, bit with settlement the overall storm totals haven't changed much. 20cm seems to be the average for overall new snow at treeline. In today's area (Purple Knob area) the Jan 6th surface hoar was down 65 and much more reactive in tests compared to the last few days. In tests, it failed with only moderate pressure(CTM12, SP). We didn't travel into the alpine today, but believe there is ongoing wind slab development on N to E aspects. As for the other trouble layers, we didn't see any results on them today, but they are still concerning.
Problems
Wind Slabs
Wind Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) formed by the wind. Wind typically transports snow from the upwind sides of terrain features and deposits snow on the downwind side. Wind slabs are often smooth and rounded and sometimes sound hollow, and can range from soft to hard. Wind slabs that form over a persistent weak layer (surface hoar, depth hoar, or near-surface facets) may be termed Persistent Slabs or may develop into Persistent Slabs.
Persistent Slabs
Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) in the middle to upper snowpack, when the bond to an underlying persistent weak layer breaks. Persistent layers include: surface hoar, depth hoar, near-surface facets, or faceted snow. Persistent weak layers can continue to produce avalanches for days, weeks or even months, making them especially dangerous and tricky. As additional snow and wind events build a thicker slab on top of the persistent weak layer, this avalanche problem may develop into a Deep Persistent Slab.