Snow was poorly bonded to crusts on southerly aspects. Small sensitive wind slabs were present near treeline. There is about 1 foot of new snow from storms during the week.

From the East Portal of Moffat Tunnel I worked up through south and east aspects to gain Crater Lakes. I then climbed the ridge to the south of Crater Lakes to treeline and reversed my route on return.

Below treeline on south and southeast aspects the snow depth varied from about 1 meter to 1.5 meters. There was a stout crust under about 30cm of soft new and wind-drifted snow from earlier in the week. Skinning in steep terrain was tricky as the snow was poorly bonded to the surface below. This crust disappeared as soon as I tilted to east aspect. As I entered Near treeline, there were many very sensitive wind-drifted pillows that would easily break and slide on northeast, east and southeast aspects. As I worked higher in this elevation band, these pillows became more stubborn as the slab thickened. In a snow profile, these slabs were failing easily in tests on a layer of defragmenting particles, and maybe a few facets were mixed in. This layer was about 30cm down so may give a good head start to avalanche size and sensitivity this weekend.

Winds were blowing moderately from the southwest and were at a good speed to actively load start zones.