Avalanche Forecast
Regions: Waterton Lakes.
Cornices are large and present right now. Overall the travel is good in the mountains with some decent skiing on high sheltered northerly terrain.
Weather Forecast
Saturday: Mainly cloudy with isolated flurries with an alpine high of -1 and light to strong gusting westerly winds. Freeze levels at the townsite level.
Avalanche Canada's Mountain Weather Forecast is a great regional-scale resource for up-to-date weather information. SPOTWX is a good resource for local scale weather forecasts.
Snowpack Summary
Up to 15cm of new snow (TL and above on northerly terrain) sits on a supportive crust that exists to ridgetop except on high north faces. Overall a well consolidated snowpack with the lower half composed of dense facets and decomposing crusts, none of which have been reactive in snowpack tests or shown weakness in avalanche activity.
Avalanche Summary
No slab avalanches reported or observed. A couple small loose dry avalanches were observed from the Forum Ridge face out of steep rocky terrain. We suspect they ran during the pulse of wind and snow last night.
Please consider submitting a MIN report if you see an avalanches.
Confidence
Timing or intensity of solar radiation is uncertain on Sunday
Avalanche Problems
Wind Slabs
Most of the new snow has been either subliminated or pushed to Lethbridge. Some pockets of windslab were noted at higher elevation lee terrain that may be reactive to skier traffic.
Aspects: North, North East, East, North West.
Elevations: Alpine, Treeline.
Likelihood: Possible
Expected Size: 1 - 2
Loose Dry
A couple of recent loose dry avalanches were noted out of some large north facing alpine terrain.
- Be careful of loose dry sluffing in steep, confined or exposed terrain.
Aspects: North, North East, East, North West.
Elevations: Alpine.
Likelihood: Possible - Likely
Expected Size: 1 - 1.5