5-10cm of fresh snow means softer turns, but be careful in windloaded or reverse loaded spots. The base is also still weak and isn't improving quickly.
Keep an eye out for early season hazards—Santa seems to be sending cool temps and clearer skies, not snowflakes!
Previous strong winds have stripped exposed alpine and tree-line terrain, creating hard wind slabs in cross-loaded and lee features. These winds switched from Southwest to Northwest on Friday, reverse loading features where snow remained.
You must keep this basal layer on your radar as triggering is possible in some features, like approaching or moving between pitches on ice climbs. Be cautious in steep terrain if you find yourself standing on the surface and not wallowing in facets, that's the problem slab.
Minor sloughing in steep alpine terrain and a small pocket of windslab from cornice trigger being reported nearby.
Otherwise no new avalanches to report.
5-10cm of new snow sits on a Melt-Freeze crust below 1900m on solar aspects. The snowpack is 45-80cm deep and is weak and facetted. Previous strong winds have stripped exposed alpine and tree-line terrain, creating hard wind slabs in cross-loaded and lee features. Basal weaknesses are a combo of large facets and chains of depth hoar.
An Ice Climbing Conditions report is available here.
The Mountain Weather Forecast is available at Avalanche Canada https://avalanche.ca/weather/forecast
Sunday in the Icefields
Sunny with cloudy periods. Alpine temperature High of -9 °C with ridgetop wind southwest 10 km/h.
Monday
Cloudy with sunny periods and isolated flurries. Trace amounts of precipitation. Alpine temperature: Low -13 °C, High -8 °C with ridgetop wind southwest: 15 km/h.
