It's complicated....

Today, the temperature in the Crown Mountain area was +6°C with sunny conditions. Below treeline, there was a significant lack of snow, which required us to drive quite a distance before reaching a suitable staging area. At 2100 m on a NE aspect, we dug a pit down to ground and found moist snow top to bottom. We identified the persistent weak layer (PWL) at a depth of 90 cm. Above this layer, there is nearly 100 cm of dense, well-consolidated snow, meaning it would likely take a large load (cornice fall?) to trigger it. As a precaution, we're avoiding areas with thin-to-thick snowpack transitions and shallow, rocky terrain. Throughout the day, we had intermittent cloud cover, but when the sun poked out, it packed a punch. We also observed evidence of a large natural avalanche cycle over the past week, with many avalanche paths already having released.