The main concern is wind slabs, especially in areas where they overlie weak surface hoar.
Avoid areas where the snow feels stiff or slabby.
Wind slabs have built below ridges and in cross-loaded terrain on a variety of aspects. A layer of surface hoar buried in early January has kept slabs reactive for longer than usual.
On Thursday, a skier triggered a small (size 1) slab north of Trout Lake on a northeast-facing alpine slope.
On Wednesday, a size 1.5 naturally triggered wind slab was observed in the Valhallas out of a steep, rocky, southeast-facing slope.
Due to wind slabs overlying weak surface hoar in some areas, we expect wind slabs to remain triggerable for longer than usual.
10 to 15 cm of low-density snow has fallen over the last few days. This snow has buried a variety of surfaces, most notably weak surface hoar, and a sun crust on sunny slopes.
The snow surface is wind-affected in many open areas in the alpine and treeline.
A couple of other weak surface hoar layers are buried 30 to 50 cm. These layers have recently only been reactive where wind-blown snow has formed a cohesive slab overtop.
A crust/facet/surface hoar layer from early December may be found 90 to 160 cm deep. Avalanche activity on this layer has tapered in recent weeks.
Check out this great MIN that describes the snowpack near London Ridge, or this one describing conditions near the Kaslo-New Denver Pass.
Friday Night
Partly cloudy. 15 to 25 km/h north ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -15 °C.
Saturday
Mostly sunny. 10 to 20 km/h north ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -11 °C.
Sunday
Sunny. 15 to 20 km/h northwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -9 °C.
Monday
Sunny. 25 km/h north ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -5 °C, inversion.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
