Winter in Elkford....AGAIN!!!

Today in Elkford we found winter yet again! The recent storm produced 20 - 25 cm of new snow that was settling and bonding well to previous surfaces of melt-freeze crust on south-facing slopes and a mix of wind-affected and soft snow on north-facing slopes above 1900 m. We did see a few dry loose avalanches out of steep unsupported terrain that were running fairly far but small - up to size 1 - 1.5. We had no shooting cracks on our tour up and testing some small convex rolls with no results. We skied a southeast-facing slope that was pretty good skiing with 20 cm of settled storm snow over a supportive melt-freeze crust. The winds were moderate all day with strong gusts out of the SW and were transporting snow so we suspect that wind slabs will be building in the alpine and possibly tree line. Temperatures remained cool with alpine temperatures around -4.