Swan Drive

Took a quick drive down the west side of the Swan Rang this afternoon to look for any blowing snow or changes in some of our known glide cracks. We stopped at vantage points and scoured the range with binoculars and cameras.

• No obvious blowing snow. Though open ridgelines were sometimes obscured by clouds we saw no snow banners through binoculars. There was still snow from last night's storm in the trees on windward ridgelines into the upper elevations. That doesn't mean the winds aren't cranking up there, just that there may be little dry snow available for new wind slab development. A few isolated slopes near Bad Rock Canyon on the north end of the range may have been stripped by southwest winds this moring - less snow in the trees on southwest aspects.
• Fast changing clouds up high point to strong winds aloft.
• The glide cracks that we documented during the mid-March meltdown on Peter's Ridge do not seem to have opened an further yet.