Sticky, funky, crusty and chunky

Afternoon tour into the northern Flathead Range to see how warming temps and wind have affected conditions. 

• Warmer temperatures and greenhousing from today's clouds left the snow on even shaded low elevation slopes sticky or wet, with rollerballs and small natural point releases occurring on many steep slopes. The snow was sticky enough to almost stop downhill progress, even when skiing at a pretty good clip. 
• I was unable to trigger a low elevation test slope late afternoon, despite 15-20 cm of wet snow, because my skis wouldn't move.
• Recent winds have scoured and drifted snow on open slopes at mid elevations, even funneling down creek beds in forested areas. The winds have left hard but unreactive slabs and thin wind crusts (and funky skiing) on most open slopes in this elevation band. Wind effects reached down below 4500 feet in one drainage and below 4000 feet in another. 
• Chunky debris from the mid-January slides widened and extended parts of the major avalanche paths in these drainage, even running almost 100 vertical feet uphill and nearly cresting a small knob. 

I avoided steep, convex rolls and drifted gullies on my descent due to the unpredictable nature of hard wind slabs.