One more morning of clear skies to do some amazing tours before cloud moves in around noon on Wednesday. Should the cloud and flurries develop later the hazard may be higher in areas with prolonged sun exposure.
After several days of warm temperatures cornices are weak and susceptible to failure. Cornices may trigger larger avalanches on slopes below.
Afternoon cloud and flurries should keep this problem to a lower likelihood Wednesday, but if there are periods of solar input expect a rapid deterioration of the snowpack resulting in some loose wet avalanches.
Wednesday morning will be clear with cloud building around noon and isolated flurries in the afternoon. For Thursday and Friday, cooler temperatures and cloud with isolated flurries is expected. For more details click here.
Surface melt freeze crusts exist on all aspects up to approx. 2300m. On high elevation north aspects dry snow can be found. The mid-pack is well settled but has several persistent layers consisting of crusts and/or facets. These are currently unreactive to skier triggering but may wake up as spring heat penetrates the snowpack.
A ski touring party reported a cornice triggered size three slab on the north side of Cathedral Peak on Sunday. The alpine remained cool on Tuesday with no new activity noted. Lake Louise reported ski cutting wet loose avalanches at and below treeline on Tuesday and isothermal conditions on steep solar aspects below treeline.
