Human triggered wind slabs remain an ongoing avalanche problem. Strong winds over the past two days have kept wind transport ongoing, despite decreasing snowfall amounts. Winds slabs are expected to be more difficult to trigger today than yesterday. Heavily wind loaded slopes directly below cornice features represent the most likely place to trigger an avalanche at this time.
Observations made yesterday on Tamarack and Incline Lake Peaks (Mount Rose area) and received from Castle Peak (Donner Summit area) revealed significant amounts of ongoing wind transport in near and above treeline areas. In wind loaded areas, skier triggered cracking up to 10 feet was created on test slopes below cornice features. In a few cases, small wind slabs 6 to 14 inches deep were released. In all cases the weak layer was an easily identifiable lower density layer of recent storm snow at the base of the surface wind slab. No signs of instability were observed in wind protected areas.
