Signs of developing wind slabs and storm slabs near Incline Peak

We toured on the northern fringes of Incline Peak this morning. Upon our arrival at the trailhead at 9:15 am, there was about 3 inches of new snow. Snowfall rates were mostly at S2 or less but varied from S1 to S5 during our tour. We had an additional 1 to 2 inches of new snow accumulation during our 4 hour tour.

While breaking trail we consistently triggered snow surface cracking down to the old/new snow interface. The new snow was depositing on crust all aspects that we traveled up to our highpoint of 9,700'. For the most part, the new snow was poorly bonded to the crust. Ski cutting steep test slopes below treeline produced dry loose avalanches consisting of the 4 to 5 inches of new snow failing on top of the crust. This dry loose instability may change to storm slab failure as additional new snow accumulates.

Along the ridgetop the SW winds were drifting moderate amounts of new snow. Wind slabs were developing along the ridgetops at up to 1.5 feet thick. The developing wind slabs did not extend more than 10-15 feet down slope in the corniced areas we observed.