Recent storm snow is sitting on a crust. Give it more time to settle and bond. In the meantime stick to lower angle terrain.
30 to 40 cm of snow has accumulated during the storm, developing storm slabs at all elevations. Slabs are most reactive where they overlie a hard crust or hard wind pressed surface snow which is fairly wide spread in Crowsnest and Castle.
On Tuesday, numerous size 1 to 1.5 dry loose avalanches were reported near Castle Mountain.
There has been a report of an avalanche fatality in the neighboring region within the Flathead range. See this MIN post for more details.
Roughly 30 to 40 cm of storm snow has accumulated. Storm slabs are building over old surfaces of:
wind-pressed snow in high elevation lees
crust on exposed windward features, south aspects and low elevations
soft, faceted snow, possibly topped with small surface hoar crystals in sheltered areas.
The remainder of the snowpack is well consolidated, containing a number of crusts which are not of concern at this time.
Wednesday Night
Partly cloudy. 10 km/h west ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -19 °C.
Thursday
Mix of sun and clouds. 1 cm of snow. 15-20 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -15 °C.
Friday
Mix of sun and clouds. 1 to 2 cm of snow. 20-30 km/h west ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -13 °C.
Saturday
Mix of sun and clouds. 15-30 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -8 °C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
