Selkirk Mountains

Persistent soft slab avalanches should be expected on all aspects, especially on open slopes over 30 degrees. The slab is due to the interface between the old snow and Thursday’s storm snow not bonding well. Conservative decision making should be applied to your route finding in the mountains today. Give extra caution to unsupported and unanchored slopes. 

Cold temperatures and overcast skies made for little change in the snowpack since Friday. Small storms moved across the zone yesterday depositing up to 4 inches depending on the location. The snow appears to have favored the northern Selkirks. It looks like we’ll see sunshine across the Panhandle today, with temperatures continuing to hover in the mid to low 20’s. The next best chance for snow is Thursday.

There have been many reports of small to medium size avalanches, as well as whoomphing, cracking and settling, over the past couple days. Snow Safety teams at Silver Mountain and Schweitzer Mountain have also seen many signs of instability, such as, natural avalanches, cracking and whoomphing. Extended column tests are consistently failing in the 5-10 range and propagating across the block.  

Travel and access to the backcountry is tricky right now for a couple reasons. First, even though we just received a bunch of snow, it’s still early season so there’s still a lot of brush, rocks, open creeks, etc. Second, the snow is so light and fluffy that it was hard to stay on the top of it. We had plenty of hollow, brushy holes and epic wallowing! These aren’t conditions that we see every year in North Idaho, but they’re consistent with the forecasted seasonal NOAA outlook of a moderate La Nina. Don’t be caught off guard with these snow conditions! Even though the snow is soft, it’s sitting on a weak interface with the old snow, which makes it’s very capable of creating a slab avalanche.

Enjoy the sunshine this weekend and please make an observation on our website if you see any avalanche activity.