Quick report
Skied in the Alpine terrain near Beehive Peak. New snow is creamy and skis great. Becuase it's denser, winds weren't transporting as much snow as they would mid-winter. The day went back and forth between heavy snowfall, a break with some sun poking through, and back and forth.
Our only avalanche concern was pockets of wind loading just under cornices and ridgetops. No wind loading below those spots and they were easy to ski around.
New snow from this week is generally well bonded - we didn't see any natural avalanches (we had good vis). We didn't experience any collapsing or shooting cracks. ECTs would not propagate failures across the column.
- However, we could get 10'x10' chunks of snow (4-6" deep) to break in between ski turns, but something was lacking to allow failures in the new snow to propagate over a larger area.
- However, nearby on Lone Mountain, the Big Sky Ski Patrol was able to easily trigger meaty wind slabs 4-8 inches deep.
So what - there should be plenty of wind slabs to steer clear of tomorrow (Friday, April 3). Identify wind loaded areas and go around them.
Then on Saturday, April 4 the sun should come out and make wet avalanches