Convective flurries gave us a few new CM of snow over the past 24hrs. Cracking along lee features such as ridge-lines and cross-loaded bowls indicates that the recent windslabs are still within the range of being triggered by a skier. Give them time to stabilize.
Variable winds have made new slabs on all aspects. West aspects have a more crossloaded look, while the east have a traditional lee loading pattern. These slabs are easy to spot in the alpine and more isolated at treeline.
These will likely trigger slabs below the ridges and possibly trigger the deeper layers. If this happens, expect a very large avalanche.
The weak basal layers are still a concern. An avalanche that occurred in the past 24 hours was a slide that stepped down to the basal layers and involved the entire snowpack.
Temperatures for Saturday are forecast to be around -10C with continued light flurries. Winds are forecast to continue out of the NW into the moderate range. If we are lucky, we may see 5-10cm over the next few days.
Some loose dry slides up to sz 1 from steep unskiable terrain. One new slab (sz 2) on a E aspects at 2700m on Mt Shark was also observed that was likely triggerred by a cornice collapse.
Convective flurries gave us 5cm or so over the past 24hrs and up to 10cm in some areas. Windslabs are being found in alpine areas up to 40cm thick and in lee and crossloaded terrain. Cracking has been observed in the upper snowpack in steeper and unsupported terrain indicating that the windlslabs are within the range of human triggerrring. The bottom 10-20cm of the snowpack is still weak depth hoar that can be triggerred from thin areas so choose routes that avoid steep thin and variable snowpack areas.
