Murdock

This was a quick sunset walk to watch the storm, check in on surfaces, and get some snow in my face. 

I started some small cracks in the freshly forming wind drifts. These propagated a few feet at most, and the "slabs" involved were tiny.

The surfaces I encountered at lower and middle elevations were generally rough, ragged, and still warm from the day's heat. The snow falling on them was warm and appeared to be bonding well. As I climbed, surfaces generally became smoother and colder. The most concerning surfaces I observed were on sheltered northerly aspects where a band of well-developed surface facets formed during the mid-March heatwave. On solar margins the new snow since Saturday has partially cooked on, creating some crust + df/fc + crust combos. These types of weak layers are variable and have a lot of aspect and slope angle specificity and I'd imagine there are at least some slopes that can produce slabs that behave with a more persistent character. 

Steady S winds blowing at moderate speeds throughout the tour were doing a good job of transporting the new snow that was falling. I found fresh, soft drifts of 20-30cm thick capping exposed ridgelines.