Cold day in the alpine

Date of Observation: 02/03/2022
Name: Zach Guy and Jack Caprio

Zone: Northwest Mountains
Route Description: Toured from Mt. Emmons to Peeler Basin to Oh-Be-Joyful Basin on various aspects to about 12,000 ft.

Observed avalanche activity: Yes
Avalanches: Skier triggered numerous small, shallow sluffs on very steep slopes facing east to north aspects at all elevations. Sluffs were about 3″ deep above treeline and entrained about 6″ of faceted snow below treeline.
Spotted one slightly larger wind slab on Mt. Afley that ran sometime in the past few days, D1 in size.
Weather: Cold temps, mostly clear skies. Light north winds were occasionally producing light drifting at ridgetop.
Snowpack: Felt comfortable moving through lots of complex avalanche terrain with minimal signs of instability apart from shallow sluffs. We encountered a few thin but hard drifts that produced localized cracking and/or collapses. I believe these formed a few days ago during the strong W/SW wind event. About 2″ of fresh snow was evenly distributed across all aspects; we encountered a few minor drifts involving just the new snow onto southerly aspects that did not produce signs of instability.