Huntington Ravine is still under a General Avalanche Advisory. A General Advisory is issued when instabilities are isolated within the entire forecast area. However it's important to realize that avalanche activity may occur within these locations before the issuance of a 5-scale forecast. This is a critical fact to remember. Under a General Advisory you need to make your own avalanche stability assessments before venturing into any open slopes.

High pressure has brought clearing conditions to the mountains and it is a beautiful day to be out. Yesterday's weather brought very high winds to the mountains and the Summit had a peak wind gust of 114 mph (184 kph) out of the NW. Over the past 24 hours Hermit Lake has recorded 2.8" (7 cm) of new snow and the Summit recorded 2.7" (6.8 cm). High water contents were also recorded with this indicating high density snow or some margin of error in snow total due to the high winds. Regardless, the Bowl picked up some new snow and had some recent avalanche activity. A fracture line is visible in the Chute while high winds and drifting snow may have masked other fracture lines around the Ravine. This leaves us with lingering stability issues in very strong lee areas, most notably in the Lip and Sluice. While the threat of natural avalanche activity has subsided, I would still be concerned about the possibility of you triggering a slide in these areas. As you head south in the Bowl, wind scouring has made the stability issues more isolated so good route finding skills should keep you out of trouble there. If you don't bother paying attention to the pockets of winds slab that were more sheltered from the high winds, you may still be able to find pockets of unstable snow in the Bowl and Chute that could ruin your day.

High pressure will remain in place for the next couple of days with steady NW and W winds. The next weather maker will be arriving during the weekend and it looks like it will bring more mixed precipitation to the mountains.

By now you should have refreshed your avalanche skills, installed some fresh high quality alkaline batteries in your avalanche beacon, and mastered its use. Don't forget your safe travel rules, techniques for assessing snow stability, and sign up for an avalanche course. Avalanche courses offered in the valley this winter are now on our website, tuckerman.org.