Wind slabs in Skiumah

Toured at mid and low elevations in the Northern Flathead Range today to hunt down wind slab instabilities. 

• 1” to 4” of relatively dense new snow overnight, depending on elevation.
• Above ~5800’, Southwest winds had drifted the snow into 5” to 12” slabs in the usual locations; crossloaded gullies and near ridges.
• We intentionally triggered several small wind slabs, saw a fresh natural wind slab, and got shooting cracks and two collapses in wind drifted features.
• The snow was too moist for transport at lower elevations. We triggered some large pinwheels at low elevations at the end of the day, but they didn’t evolve into wet loose slides. 
• We saw no sluffing; surfaces were too dense from temperatures or wind affect.
• We avoided steep windloaded features where the consequences of a small wind slab would bring trouble. We also avoided steep terrain in the alpine because whiteout conditions up high made it more difficult to identify wind loading patterns effectively.