The wind has created a firm thin (10cm) layer of stubborn slab over the new snow. This layer could act independently of other weak layers but a greater concern is the basal facets on north to east aspects and facet crust combos on southeasterly aspects. Thes layers are about 50cm deep so very triggerable by the weight of a person or machine.

The area I observed was mostly the lower reaches of high alpine bowls. The terrain is very open and exposed.

From the Jones Pass trailhead we toured up the road towards the Jones Pass proper bowl and observed slopes below this area. We then traveled across to the Gumlick/Powelines bowl to look at an avalanche there. We then traveled fall line back to the truck.

Below treeline the snow is mostly soft and unconsolidated and I was easily able to punch my pole to the ground with the basket side down. I did get one collapse in a meadow but jumping on a few steep test slopes I was not able to get any cracking. Near treeline the slab at the surface increased quickly and was very firm in many areas. This layer is anything from 1" to 10" thick and is pencil hard but not very reactive to skis. I was not able to get this to crack on any test slopes but in tests it was very reactive with easy propagating failures in column tests failing on last weeks storm snow. The bigger concern for large avalanches was weak layers deeper in the snowpack. On northerly and east aspects this was in the form of basal facets with a firm layer of wind packed snow above. This propagated with moderate force on an Extended Column Test. On southeast slopes the primary concern is a crust layer with about 30cm of facets below and about 10cm of facets above. This layer is about 50cm deep. In tests this layer failed on isolation.

Wind was blowing consistently from the west northwest with large plumes of the peaks.