The slab is gaining strength making it harder to affect the weak layer. But...... the weak layer is very weak and if people find the weak area of a slope it could be catastrophic. Near Treeline seems like the elevation band where it is probably easiest for riders to still trigger an avalanche easily.

A lot of below treeline travel and then some above treeline travel in areas normally very wind affected.

I ascended into the westerly facing trees in the West Fork of Clear Creek (the other Jones Pass drainage). I gained the ridge and descended a short way into the Vasquez Wilderness before gaining the unnamed peak to the west of Vasquez Peak and descended southwesterly facing slopes back to the valley and the truck.

Below treeline the snow is fairly soft with an average snow height of 1 meter. I was easily able to push my ski pole all the way to the ground and it felt like a fist slab over fist basal facets. On a westerly near treeline slope that was quite open I experienced the most collapsing of any location. The snowpack in this area was the thinnest I found at only 70 to 90cm deep and was broken into thirds. Bottom third was basal facets, middle third was the post Christmas slab and the top third was storm snow from this weekend. In my pit location the slab was supportive to boots as long as you were very delicate but once I punched through I was on the ground and had a good collapse that coincided with punching through the slab. When I worked up to around 12000 feet in both an easterly and southeasterly snow pit I found a pencil hard layer buried about 30cm deep the was formed with winds just before this weekends storm. This layer was thin and not reactive currently. Both these areas had around 120 -150cm of snow and both had weak basal facets that failed with hard force on Extended Column Tests. Both also had End results with very short cut lengths on Propagation Saw Tests. Interestingly the weak layer in my easterly profile was a facet crust combo which was not found on the southeast aspect. It seems like above treeline is getting harder to trigger but if you find the sour spot you can trigger a very large avalanche.

It was cold but thankfully fairly calm. Snow was flurrying from the sky on and off all day. It was cold.