The presence of a buried weak layer requires discipline at this time. Start with small objectives and give the new snow a little longer to gain strength before pushing into more committing terrain.
Weather Forecast
Synopsis: A ridge of high pressure should be the dominant feature over the next several days. The only exception is on Saturday when a weak disturbance moves through bringing more cloud and a chance of flurries. Temperatures should stay slightly below normal with daytime highs around -8 at treeline and winds generally light from the north. The sun should return on Sunday with temperatures starting to rise and the potential for an above freezing layer to form.
Avalanche Summary
A widespread natural avalanche cycle was observed on Wednesday with numerous slab avalanches up to size 2 and a few larger events up to size 3. There were also several size 2 skier triggered avalanches, many occurring at below treeline elevations and releasing on the early January surface hoar layer.
Snowpack Summary
Up to 60 cm of snow fell earlier this week. This new snow was generally upside down feeling and was affected by strong winds at higher elevations. The storm snow was initially bonding very poorly to the previous snow surface, which includes large surface hoar, facets, old hard wind slabs, or a sun crust. Snowpack tests on Wednesday continued to yield easy to moderate sudden planar, or "pops", results on this interface. No significant weaknesses have been reported recently below this in the mid snowpack layers. Near the base of the snowpack, a crust/facet layer exists, which is now unlikely to be triggered, except perhaps by heavy triggers in steep, shallow, rocky terrain where more facetting has taken place.
Problems
Persistent Slabs
Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) in the middle to upper snowpack, when the bond to an underlying persistent weak layer breaks. Persistent layers include: surface hoar, depth hoar, near-surface facets, or faceted snow. Persistent weak layers can continue to produce avalanches for days, weeks or even months, making them especially dangerous and tricky. As additional snow and wind events build a thicker slab on top of the persistent weak layer, this avalanche problem may develop into a Deep Persistent Slab.