Driftraft

It was a windy day with plenty of soft, low density snow available for transport. We observed active wind transport in open areas below treeline as low as 1600 m. But soft new wind slabs were unreactive in the mellow cutblocks we rode. We dug at 1800 m and found 40-50 cm right-side-up, mostly unconsolidated snow over facets on the 15 cm thick early December crust complex. Snowpack tests produced very easy to moderate results on this facet layer but the main story was that there wasn't enough slab character in the overlying snow for planar failure or propagation. So at this elevation in this area, the persistent slab isn't an avalanche problem... yet. Continued wind transport, an increase in temperatures or additional snow loads could easily change this!