Gothic Mountain

Spring is in full effect with loose avalanche concerns dictating travel techniques on the south half of the compass.  East and south aspects would provide good conditions in the AM and be past prime by noon and likely to produce triggered loose avalanches.  Westerlies hold out until the early afternoon.  The dust layer will likely change the ideal timing earlier in the day on Thursday.

We traveled on the south half of the compass to 12,500 feet and found that surfaces began to naturally shed on easterlies by about 11 and south around noon.  By 2 pm low elevation southerlies lost boot support with penetration to the ground.  Low-elevation sunny slopes could produce gouging loose avalanches by the afternoon.  There is variation across high-elevation southerlies depending on how much of last week's storm snow was stripped away by southwest winds.  We avoided terrain that clearly had thicker slabs from last week to avoid a surprise slab avalanche due to warming or wetting.  The most recent dust layer is now showing on many sunny slopes and this will accelerate meltwater production in the next two days.