Wild westerly winds

northrockiesfieldteam , Tuesday 7th January, 2025 5:15PM

After a week of calm and cold, the wind and temperature increased significantly today. We saw blowing snow at ridge crests and watched wind slabs growing on easterly aspects. The wind slabs were easy to trigger and propagated far. This obvious warning sign of instability, along with a temperature increase to +2.5 at Treeline, made it an easy decision to stay off of large Alpine terrain. We returned to the sheltered trees where pockets of soft snow remained.

Blowing snow at ridge crests. Westerly, windward, aspects looked striped down to rock and glacial ice. Lots of soft snow at tree line still available for transport. Strong winds TL and ALP. Moderate winds BTL