This is Janet Kellam with the Sawtooth National Forest Avalanche
 Center with General Snow and Weather Information on Wednesday,
 December 5, 2007.
 This information will be updated on Friday for the weekend. We need a
 bit more snow cover to begin daily advisories.

 Backcountry Conditions: The snowpack remains thin at lower elevations,
 higher elevations gained more snowdepth with our last storm. About a
 foot of snow is on the ground at SNRA headquarters, Just under two
 feet at Galena Lodge and two and one half to three feet of snow is on
 Galena Summit. A variety of crusts exist until you climb into upper
 elevations where softer (but dense and grabby) snow can be found.

 Avalanche Conditions: Cold temperatures have refrozen the snowpack at
 mid to lower elevations. Our future avalanche concerns at lower
 elevations will be for how well any new snowfall bonds to the old
 crusts. However, at upper elevations above approximately 8,000feet, we
 continue to receive reports of whumphing, cracking and collapsing of
 the snowpack. The next couple days, we urge caution for any steeper
 slope (steeper than low 30 degree slope angle) with this condition.

 At upper elevations, the recent snowfall has formed a cohesive slab of
 snow that now rests on top of weak, sugary old snow. Additional load
 from any wind drifted snow has added to the top heavy snowpack. The
 very warm temperatures have helped to consolidate the snowpack and
 strengthen the buried weak layers, but we still need a bit more time
 for conditions to stabilize better.

 Check out a video of a snowpit on Avalanche Peak:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91DAuaZju5Q
 Mountain Weather: For the next two days we can expect isolated snow
 showers, cooling temperatures and light winds from the northwest.

 Friday, a weather system is forecast to pass south of us. We'll update
 this information Friday afternoon.