Avalanche Forecast

Good

Thursday: Scattered cloud, no significant precipitation. Light variable winds at all elevations. Friday: Broken cloud, 0 to 4 cm of snow possible. Light variable winds at all elevations. Saturday: Few clouds, no significant precipitation. Light N winds at treeline, moderate N/NE winds at ridgetop.

No new avalanche activity was reported on Tuesday.

The most prominent feature in the snowpack is the upper crust. This robust crust is supportive all the way to ridge crest and is effectively "capping" the snowpack, keeping the weight of riders from interacting with any deeper weak layers. Surface hoar on this crust is a widespread phenomenon. On solar aspects the proud crust is on the surface, on shadier aspects there may be 5 - 20 cm of settled storm snow on it. There are still weak layers in the snowpack that we'll continue to monitor. The mid-January surface hoar layer is down about 100cm in the alpine and down around 50 to 60cm at treeline. The mid-December crust/facet/surface hoar weakness may persist in the mid to lower snowpack at higher elevations. Both these layers have gone dormant for the time being, we would likely need significant warming to re-activate them.