The snowpack needs time to adjust to last week's intense warming. Be aware of the various avalanche problems that still exist.
Cornices are large at this time of year and will become more prone to fail as they warm up with spring weather. Stay well back from them when on ridgelines and limit your exposure when travelling on slopes below them, as their release is unpredictable. Cornice falls could trigger very large slab avalanches on slopes below them.
New slabs may form in the alpine over the weekend. Use caution if you find more than 15 cm of recent snow.
Layers of concern include weak snow above hard crusts buried about 50 to 100 cm deep and weak facets near the bottom of the snowpack. Human triggered avalanches are most likely in steep, shallow, and rocky terrain, where the snowpack is relatively thin.
Resulting avalanches could travel far and even into snow-free valleys. For this reason, recognizing and avoiding areas with large overhead avalanche slopes, even if they are out of sight, is very important.
An avalanche cycle of large to very large (size 2 to 4) wet loose and slab avalanches, cornice failures, and deep persistent slab avalanches occurred over much of the region within the past two weeks. The likelihood of triggering may decrease while the snowpack experiences lower freezing levels and cloudy skies.
A moist snow surface is expected below the rain-snow line, which will freeze into a melt-freeze crust overnight. Any snow that accumulates in the high alpine will build onto a hard melt-freeze crust.
The intense heat from the past two weeks moistened the snowpack. The warming reawakened weak layers, including weak snow above crusts buried in late March (50 to 100 cm deep) and the weak basal facets found at the bottom of the snowpack.
The snowpack is quickly diminishing below treeline, but large avalanches could release at higher elevations and run into valley bottoms.
Saturday sees a freezing level decline to around 2500 m by late afternoon with mostly cloudy skies and periods of light rain. Sunday and Monday's freezing level is between 2000 m and 2500 m with mostly cloudy skies and periods of rain or snow in the high alpine.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
