Strong ridge-top winds blowing from the west will remain steady through the day. This will create pockets of stiff slabs in upper elevation terrain that may be sensitive to the additional weight of a rider. Avoid any slope steeper than 30-degrees where you observe obvious signs of wind drifting. The snow surface may appear rough and textured, with obvious changes in the surface hardness.

Overnight, below-freezing temperatures created a thick melt-freeze crust on the surface at all elevations. As the daytime temperatures warm and the surface crust deteriorates, the potential for wet-snow avalanches will rise. On Monday, the wet surface snow easily slid atop the firm crust beneath. Although generally small in size, wet and heavy snow can quickly entrain more mass, pick up speed, and be difficult to escape. Avoid traveling on steep slopes where you find wet and unsupportable conditions, especially near terrain traps where a small avalanche could have outsized consequences.

The Dry January Layer (DJL) of faceted snow is 2-4 feet deep and buried by a strong slab and supportable crusts in most parts of the zone. The last reported human-triggered avalanche failing on the DJL occurred on February 21 in the Ant Knolls. Triggering an avalanche failing on the DJL is unlikely, and this problem is moving toward dormancy. The suspect terrain where you can still trigger a dangerous hard-slab avalanche failing on the DJL is on northerly aspects at upper elevations, where there is a thinner slab, such as a "repeater slope" that previously avalanched this season.