Metamor-posing

Today we sledded around the Grizzly Plateau. We didn’t see any new avalanches, but we did find wind slab on top of our concerning layer of weak, feathery crystals buried 70 cm deep. When we dug on the flats in the treeline, we experienced a very large whumphf, which was the weak layer of buried surface hoar collapsing under our feet. This gave us a heads up to avoid any steep or consequential slopes as this layer collapsing on a steeper slope could result in a large slab avalanche. It was still snowing in the morning but then cleared up, with about 10 cm of new snow total. In sheltered areas there is some soft riding to be found but any exposed areas and the alpine terrain up on the Plateau is very wind affected from previous southwesterly winds. The wind stiffened snow is not very good riding.