The hazard will gradually increase with the winds and snow forecasted for Friday night and Saturday. How much and when the hazard rises will depend on intensity of the winds and snow amounts.
The crust/facet layer down 20-40cm on solar slopes at treeline and above has produced a size 3.5 skier accidental avalanche on Mar 8. Give it a wide berth. The buried crust will be more prominent on solar aspects, and does not exist on north aspects.
The next few days will warm slowly as the weather pattern changes to a south west flow. Not much change expected Friday morning but starting Friday afternoon winds out of the west will start to increase. Strong winds, temperatures up to -8 and 3-6 cm of snow expected on Saturday.
5-10 cm of low density snow sits over a sun crust on steep solar aspects that exists up to ~2600m. Moderate North winds over Wednesday night created some wind effect in high alpine terrain. February 16 sun crust down 30-40 cm on west, south and east aspects. January 30 facet or sun crust interface is down 50-80 cm. Lower snowpack is well settled.
On Tuesday a skier triggered a large persistent slab (size 3.5) on the SE slope of Vermillion Peak. No involvement was reported but this is a wake-up to the potential on this crust. Also on Tues we received a report of a cornice triggered size 2.5 slab avalanche on Mt. Carnarvon in Yoho - this one also likely ran on the crust.
