Stepping Out In The Sunshine

Went to the northern Whitefish Range looking for lingering wind slabs, sluffing in the storm snow, and sunshine. 2 out of 3 ain't bad...

• There was little evidence of a big avalanche cycle here during last weekend's storm. With good visibility we found only 1 recent large natural avalanche. Sledders yesterday had highmarked some steep middle elevation terrain and triggered no avalanches that we could find.
• We saw many small natural sluffs on very steep solar slopes at middle and upper elevations. We triggered a few ourselves, but they were not reactive except on the steepest slopes and with big triggers: either stomping like petulant children, or medium-sized cornice drops.
• We searched wind slabs like bounty hunters. Despite evidence of previous wind loading from both northeast and southwest winds, it took a lot of jumping on a lot of test slopes and a lot of cornice drops before we found any slabs to trigger. The 2 we could get to break were about 5' x 5' x 6" and didn't slide far down the hill. Most of our attempts resulted in baby sluffs.
• We were comfortable stepping out and skiing very steep terrain one at a time. We avoided extreme terrain where even a small sluff knocking you off your feet would have outsize consequences, and where slipping on the 2/1 crust would be more than a bummer.