The cooling trend will help stabilize the snowpack in the coming days however we are still dealing with a weak base which isn't going anywhere quickly.
The snowpack remains very thin, watch out for early season hazards lurking just below the surface—here's hoping everyone asked for snow from Santa!
Recent strong southerly winds have stripped exposed alpine and tree-line terrain, creating hard wind slabs in cross-loaded and lee features.
You must keep this basal layer on your radar as triggering is possible in some features, like approaching or moving between pitches on ice climbs. Be cautious in steep terrain if you find yourself standing on the surface and not wallowing in facets, that's the problem slab.
Minor sloughing in steep alpine terrain and small pockets of windslab being reported nearby.
Friday's elevated freezing level means there's likely a surface crust below 1700m as temperatures cool off. The snowpack is 45-80cm deep and is weak and facetted. Strong winds have stripped exposed alpine and tree-line terrain, creating hard wind slabs in cross-loaded and lee features. Basal weaknesses are a combo of large facets and chains of depth hoar.
An Ice Climbing Conditions report is available here.
The Mountain Weather Forecast is available at Avalanche Canada https://avalanche.ca/weather/forecast
Saturday in the Icefields
A mix of sun and cloud. Alpine temperature: High -12 °C with mostly light ridge wind occasionally gusting to 35 km/h.
Sunday
A mix of sun and cloud. Alpine temperature: Low -14 °C, High -8 °C with ridge wind southwest: 10 km/h.
