West winds picked up on the afternoon of 2-20-07.  They found lots of new snow from a storm on the 19th to drift about.

By early afternoon I was able to trigger shooting cracks in freshly drifted snow.

Cornices also became sensitive, triggering small wind slabs when they landed on drifted slopes below.

Strong winds continued overnight, and a few natural avalanches ensued.  This one on Three-Terraces on the northeast side of Providence Peak started as a cornice-fall.  A small fresh wind slab avalanche overran the slope below and triggered a step-down hard slab running on old faceted snow.  Notice the old blown-in crown in the foreground from the earlier avalanche, which occurred on President's Day Weekend.

The overnight natural avalanche, on a steep northeast facing slope at around 9400' in elevation, overran several snowmobile tracks from 2-20-07 (yesterday).  The initial wind slab avalanche was about a foot deep, but as it overran the lower part of the slope, a ~3'-deep hard slab pulled out and significantly increased the size of the avalanche.  I did not dare get any closer to the crown than this...

Travis Seeholzer took this picture at 7:00 this morning from the top of Beaver Mountain of another overnight natural avalanche near Double Top in Steep Hollow.  From a distance I'd say this avalanche is a couple hundred feet wide and ~2 feet deep.  The very steep northeast facing slope at around 9300' in elevation loads heavily from southwesterly winds. ***(Thanks Travis)