Maintaining good travel habits will help you to manage the isolated wind slabs and pockets of preserved surface hoar that linger in the region.
Wind slabs trend less reactive as they facet and lose cohesion in the cold temperatures. Isolated pockets may remain triggerable where they sit over a rain crust or large surface hoar crystals.
Continued caution is warranted around steep, shaded slopes around treeline where pockets of buried surface hoar may still be preserved.
Sunday night: Cloudy with flurries bringing less than 5 cm of new snow. Light south winds
Monday: Cloudy with continuing isolated flurries and a further trace of new snow. Light south or southeast winds. Alpine high temperatures around -13.
Tuesday: Mostly cloudy with isolated flurries and a trace of new snow. Light south winds. Alpine high temperatures around -13.
Wednesday: Cloudy with flurries bringing 5-10 cm of new snow, continuing but easing overnight. Light to moderate southeast winds. Alpine high temperatures around -11.
A single, sluggish skier-triggered size 1 (small) hard wind slab was reported from the Five Mile Provincial Park area on Saturday. This occurred on a northeast aspect at 2000 metres and is a good reminder of the hazards that still need to be managed during times of relatively good stability. Otherwise, there have been no new reports of avalanches in the last couple of days.
Earlier last week, a few small skier controlled wind slabs at wind loaded ridgecrests likely failed on shallow surface hoar and ran on a near surface crust.
One or more crusts may exist in the upper snowpack depending on elevation and area within the region. The uppermost crust extends up to around 2000 m, ie. ridgetop in areas such as Rossland. In higher terrain, 10-15 cm of wind affected snow may sit over crust and/or large surface hoar crystals.
A layer of surface hoar found 20-50 cm below the surface in isolated areas in the north and east of the region appears to be healing. It may still produce moderate to hard planar snowpack test results on rounding crystals, but has not had any associated avalanche activity in over a week.
A couple of crusts surrounded by weak faceted grains are buried deep within the snowpack. The upper layer is 80 to 130 cm deep and the lower is near the ground. These do not present a problem under the current conditions.
