Dry loose avalanches will be your primary concern today, on steep slopes >35 degrees. You may still find some old wind slabs, especially above treeline on leeward aspects (E-NE). As we approach 6-8" of snow accumulation by Friday morning, storm slabs will be an additional avalanche problem.
A dry loose avalanche generally is not going to bury a rider but could push you off your feet or into consequential terrain. If you observe small, loose snow avalanches fanning out from steep terrain features or around rocks and trees this is a good indicator of how you could influence the uncohesive surface snow.
To summarize our current snowpack in the Elkhorns, the upper 2/3 are quite good and are exhibiting a strong right side up snowpack, but unfortunately, the bottom 1/3 stinks. Just because the avalanche danger rating is "moderate" doesn't mean we are out of the woods. The snowpack is getting a little bit of a break, but once we continue to load this poor snowpack structure the danger will once again rise. Making a "go/no go" decision on the danger rating, or what you see in the upper snowpack shouldn't decrease your safety margins. Remember we can often get "false positive" test results in our snowpack tests, especially when the weak layers of concern are greater than 4' from the surface.
