Avalanche Forecast

Deep persistent slab avalanches (size 1.5 to 2) have been continually triggered with explosive control over the past week, with the most recent occurrence on Monday. On Sunday, a skier in the Dogtooth Range was uninjured after accidentally triggering a size 2 deep persistent slab on basal facets over a smooth rock slab.

New snow is (very) gradually accumulating over surface hoar, facets, and crusts. Beneath lies a thin and complex snowpack with several layers of concern:

• A layer of surface hoar buried 20 to 50 cm deep is a concern in areas where it is not covered by a thick crust.

• Weak basal facets near the bottom of the snowpack, especially in alpine terrain.

Read this blog post for more details.

Snowpack depths at treeline range from 50 to 130 cm.

Wednesday Night

Cloudy with trace amounts of snowfall, alpine wind southwest 20 km/h, treeline temperature -8 °C.

Thursday

Cloudy with 1 to 2 cm of snow in the afternoon, alpine wind southwest 30 km/h, treeline temperature -6 °C.

Friday

Cloudy with 1 to 5 cm overnight then partly cloudy in the afternoon, alpine wind west 40 km/h, treeline temperature -8 °C.

Saturday

Cloudy with 2 to 5 cm of snow, alpine wind southwest 30 to 50 km/h, treeline temperature -8 °C.

More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.

• Avoid shallow snowpack areas, rock outcroppings and steep convex terrain where triggering is most likely.
• Be mindful that deep instabilities are still present and have produced recent large avalanches.
• Uncertainty is best managed through conservative terrain choices at this time.