FATのライアン：
Since the previous post, there were 2 more pluses of snow with similar wind direction, NW.
Quickly after the previous blog post the stability improved a lot. - Slightly increasing temperatures probably helped.
I was skiing untracked snow, season deep, non skier compacted snow in the Yubari Mountains on various aspects up to 1000m today and stability was very good on the slopes I skied.
However, I have not yet been to the high Alpine so there is a chance there are some overloaded slopes that are not yet stable. A logical assumption would be that the SE slopes in the high alpine maybe be unstable due to additional wind loading.
Crossing over various aspects, it is obvious that the SE and E aspects have a lot more snow than the NW and W aspects. I found best skiing conditions on cross loaded NE slopes.
There is increasingly less snow in the forecast so stability should improve into the coming weather window which may be a good opportunity to ski alpine avalanche terrain assuming stability keeps improving at this rate.
After a few more storm sets the creeks of the Yubari Mountains will mostly be filled in and backcountry skiing will be on in central Hokkaido. Until then, there are still a few dangerous twigs and log traps lurking beneath the surface.
Dangerous avalanche conditions. Careful snow pack evaluation, cautious route-finding and conservative decision-making essential.
Heightened avalanche conditions on specific terrain features. Evaluate snow and terrain carefully; identity features of concern.
Generally safe avalanche conditions. Watch unstable snow on isolated terrain features.
Risk level definitions from avalanche.org, with permission.
