Use caution in wind loaded areas. Minimize your exposure to steep slopes facing the sun during the hottest part of the day.
Strong southwest winds have built wind slabs in alpine and treeline lees. Although natural avalanche activity has tappered off wind slabs remain possible to human trigger.
The full impact of the march sun is slowly weakening cornices.
On Tuesday, a skier accidental size 2.5 wind slab avalanche was reported. The group triggered the avalanche in a 2000 m start zone that had been reverse-loaded by northeast winds earlier in the week.
On Tuesday and Wednesday explosive control in the region triggered a few wind slab avalanches to size 2.5. A natural, size 2.5, cornice triggered windslab avalanche was observed in the alpine.
If you head out in the backcountry, let us know what you are seeing by submitting a report to the Mountain Information Network.
+20 cm of storm snow falling earlier in the week and southwest winds have formed wind slabs in lees at alpine and treeline. This sits above hard, wind-affected snow in open areas and a sun crust on solar slopes. Below 1800 m the surface is covered by a refrozen rain crust.
A melt-freeze crust with facets above can be found 50 to 120 cm deep. It has not produced any recent avalanche activity in the region, however, professionals are still tracking it to watch for signs of it becoming an active problem.
The mid to lower snowpack is well-bonded. Currently, we are not seeing the same basal weak layers and reactivity that many of the neighboring regions are experiencing this season.
Thursday Night
Cloudy with clear periods. Treeline temperature -7 °C. Wind light southwest.
Friday
Mainly sunny. Treeline temperature 0 °C. Wind light southwest. Freezing level rising to 1800 meters.
Saturday
Mainly sunny. Treeline temperature 1 °C. Wind light southwest. Freezing level rising to 2000 meters.
Sunday
Mainly sunny. Treeline temperature 0 °C. Wind light southwest. Freezing level rising to 1900meters.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
