Recent winds have done a lot of damage to the upper elevations. Look to sheltered areas at lower elevations for better quality skiing. Ice climbers and scramblers should be wary of lee and cross-loaded features especially in the Alpine.
Just as you transition from treeline into the alpine watch for wind slabs. Lee and cross-loaded features are the main areas of concern.
This problem will be with us all season. At higher elevations there is more concern that these deep persistent weak layers could be human triggerable.
Nothing new observed in the last couple of days.
There has been little change to the snowpack in the last 24hrs. Low density snow is found on the surface at lower elevations and in sheltered areas. However, recent winds have created wind slabs in the Alpine and stripped windward slopes down to bare rock in many areas. The early December crust found about 20-35cm down is keeping the skis from diving down into the weaker basal layers of the snowpack, but in areas with denser tree/bush coverage, this crust does not hold the weight of a skier. For better travel conditions look for open planar slopes below approximately 2300m where the crust is supportive. Overall the snowpack across the region is quite shallow, and the basal layers consist of weak facets and depth hoar. This is potentially most concerning at higher elevations where the Dec rain crust disappears and there is simply slab sitting on weak basal layers.
Expect cloudy skies on Thursday with very isolated flurries. Unfortunately no accumulations are predicted, so snowfall will be very light at best. Winds will continue to be strong from the SW to W, and temperatures should be relatively steady near -4C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
