Observation: Chugach State Park

Broken skies with strong winds from the north/northwest at the ridge and at higher elevations. No precipitation.

If you can tuck into wind-sheltered terrain the skiing conditions were not bad for normal Front Range mid-winter conditions. The snow surface at spots protected from the wind was ~2-6" of light low-density snow on a supportable crust. Along the ridge were hard wind slabs, soft tender fresh wind slabs, or the wind had stripped the ridge to bare ground.

Overall, we were looking at a wind-affected landscape. Lots of patches of bare ground, predominately wind-loaded snow surfaces, with sections of "dust on crust" in places protected from the wind. The outflow wind event brought winds from the north/northwest and typically, the predominate winds in the Front Range come from the southeast. Strong winds with light snow (the ~7"-9" of snow that came in on Saturday) can create wind slabs in more unusual spots from cross-loading and loading mid-slope.