Cautiously assess conditions as you travel - the fresh snow may hide reactive slabs or, more likely, early-season hazards.
Strong winds impacting overnight snow likely formed reactive slabs, the deepest and most reactive deposits will be in open and wind-loaded areas. Be mindful that you may find reactive slabs lower on the slope than usual as a result of the strong winds.
No new avalanches have been observed or reported in the region. Observations are limited at this time of year, if you head into the backcountry consider submitting a MIN report.
Overnight snowfall covered wind-affected snow and crust at upper elevations and moist snow and dirt at treeline and below.
Where the snowpack is growing, a weak drought layer is down 20-50 cm. This layer consists of hard, wind-affected snow in the alpine, surface hoar or facetted snow in sheltered areas, and a crust on solar aspects and low elevations. Below this layer, several other facet-crust interfaces exist in the snowpack.
Terrain features poke through a building snowpack that ranges from 50-100 cm in the alpine and 40-60 cm at treeline. Most solar slopes and below treeline are below the threshold for avalanches.
Saturday night
Snowfall and strong southwest winds will peak around midnight, then temperatures cool and winds begin to decrease. 10-20 mm precipitation overnight, alpine high -1 C, snow/rain line peaking around 1000 m.
Sunday
Up to 20 cm of new snow by morning and convective flurries possible throughout the day. Strong west wind decreasing to moderate, treeline temperatures dropping to -12 C, and freezing level dropping to valley bottom.
MondayCold and sunny with patchy clouds. Moderate northeast wind, treeline lows down to -14 C, and freezing level valley bottom.
TuesdayCold, with a mix of sun and cloud. Moderate southerly wind, treeline lows down to -16 C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
