The avalanche hazard is slowly increasing with new snow and stronger winds. We expect to be able to trigger small wind slabs on steep, loaded slopes, and have started seeing some larger avalanches due to facetting in the snowpack.
Enjoy the fresh snow, but choose more conservative terrain as conditions change over the next few days.
New and older wind slabs are present in alpine and treeline lee areas that can be triggered by skiers and climbers. As the winds increase and more snow arrives these avalanches will get larger and more touchy. In thin rocky areas we are starting to see some avalanches scrub to ground in weak facets.
Explosive work on Fri/Sat in steep NE alpine terrain at Lake Louise produced multiple size 2 wind slabs 20-40 cm deep, that propagated up to 75 m, and ran ~300 m, scrubbing to ground in thin facetted areas. A thin mid-pack melt-freeze crust aided the propagation.
Local ski areas were able to trigger multiple size 1-1.5 wind slabs on Saturday, with similar public reports.
On Thursday, a size 3 cornice failure off Crowfoot Mountain went over the glacier and into the moraines.
5-10 cm of new snow on Saturday with light to moderate W/SW winds. Wind slabs are present in lee areas of the alpine and treeline up to 40 cm thick.
At treeline and below, the snow remains generally soft, despite the wind, with a relatively supportive mid-pack, but the entire snowpack has been facetting and weakening.
A few buried sun and melt-freeze crusts are present, and a Nov 13 rain crust exists in the middle of the snowpack below 2100-2300 m that is starting to break down.
Sunday will bring W/SW winds, increasing from moderate to strong later in the day. Clouds and another 5-8 cm of snowfall are expected, with treeline temperatures ranging from -5°C to -10°C.
More significant precipitation appears to be on the horizon for Monday and Tuesday of next week. Fingers crossed.
