I haven't been this surprised by conditions in quite a while. Within 30 minutes of touring, we completely altered our plan for the day to take a big step back after very obvious signs of instability were highlighting how avalanche conditions were notably more dangerous than I expected. The main concern is the new snow developing into a slab on top of the weakest persistent weak layer I've seen in a couple of years above 10,500 feet on north, northeast, and east-facing slopes. Snowpack tests showed the December drought persistent weak layer is waking up from this load and step-down avalanches are also concerning on the same aspects as well as northwest.

Maroon Bells area

Snowmobiled to Maroon Lake, ascended north and east-facing slope up to the sub-peak southeast of Maroon Lake just over 11600ft. and descended the same way.

Observed several Loose Wet avalanches from last week's warm-up and several older large avalanches that nearly made it from ridgetop to valley floor, likely from the wind event in late January. Triggered a soft slab on a north-facing slope near treeline. This was the only open, steep slope we got close to and triggered an avalanche immediately. The new slab still seems too thin, soft, and disconnected for larger remotely triggered avalanches but I am confident you could trigger an avalanche on most steep slopes facing north, northeast, or east above 11,000 feet right now.

Several slope scale collapses on low-angle terrain close to West Maroon Creek on north and southeast-facing slopes that shook small trees hundreds of feet away. Around 6 to 8 inches of new snow below treeline resting on top of a mix of supportable crusts and wet facets. Once we hit about 10,500 feet there was a noticeable difference in new snow totals and the moisture of the weak layer underneath the new snow. About 8 to 10 inches of 4F- to 4F (on the hand hardness scale) new snow rested on very well-developed, F- facets. This upper persistent weak layer is the weakest, most well-developed near-surface facets I've seen since the January 2022 dry spell. We started getting quiet collapses on every step into untouched snow and although the collapse was difficult to hear and feel, we could see cracks shooting up to and sometimes exceeding 100 feet across the slope. Wind-loaded slopes had much louder and more noticeable collapses. Extended column tests consistently failed after 1 tap on this upper persistent weak layer and also showed propagating failures consistently after 15 to 20 taps on the December drought layer about 50 to 70cm below the snow surface. The new slab did not seem cohesive or connected enough to cross over multiple terrain features but if we get more snow and the slab grows thicker and connects avalanche conditions will be very scary. On lower-elevation (under 10,500 ft) east and some southeast-facing slopes there was a fully supportable crust on slopes steeper than 20 degrees with about 4 to 6 inches of settled snow on top that seemed to be bonding well to the crust.

Beautiful day with notable, intense wind transport all day along ridgelines but mostly calm along the valley floor.