The buried surface hoar and sun crust could still be reactive to a skier/riders weight and if triggered would result in a large avalanche. Keep this in mind when choosing your line. As well, be alert when entering wind affected areas.
Weather Forecast
Today we can expect mostly cloudy skies with isolated flurries, light mountain top winds from the SW gusting into moderate, with the temp to remain around -9 in the alpine. Clearing Wednesday, temps will be cool (-12 in the alpine) and winds switching to the NW.
Snowpack Summary
30cm of snow covers a supportive crust below 1600m. 60-80cm of settled snow covers the Dec 2 interface. Below tree line Dec 2 surface hoar has showed no recent activity. On steep solar aspects above treeline Dec 2 is a sun crust and remains reactive in tests in the mod - hard range. Expect pockets of wind affected snow at tree line and above.
Avalanche Summary
Pockets of wind affected snow above 2200m from previous wind events. Skier triggering is possible and reported to be within the top 20cm of snow, cracking up to 10m wide. Keep this in mind when transitioning into open slopes.No reports of the Dec 2 interface being reactive over the weekend, but this layer can still trigger a large avalanche.
Confidence
Due to the number of field observations
Problems
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.