Hero Snow and Sunscreen

In the Flathead today we were looking at the recent storm snow.

• We found 4 to 12 inches of low density, but settling snow from last week topped by 2 inches of cold blower powder that fell yesterday. 
• In sheltered terrain it was not sticking very well to underlying crusts and old wind slabs. Skinning on side hills was challenging and we triggered a few very small sluffs.
• The sun was out and we saw rollerballs and a dozen or so small wet loose avalanches on steep, rocky, south-facing terrain. These were mostly at mid elevations. 
• On upper elevation sunny slopes the top inch was moist. It was starting to form a thin sun crust by early afternoon. 
• Shade and cold wind were keeping northerly aspects and ridgetops dry. We saw isolated areas of blowing snow.

We saw no signs of instability on shaded terrain and we skied world class powder down to about 4500 feet where there wasn't much to keep us from bouncing off the hard crust.