Avalanche Forecast

Moderate - Due to the number and quality of field observations

Cloudy with sunny periods and some convective flurry activity for Tuesday.  Alpine temperatures at -8.0 and winds will be westerly light to moderate at upper treeline and moderate northwesterly winds in the alpine.  Freezing levels will be valley bottom. 

A notable avalanche just outside the ski area boundary at Sunshine Village Ski area.  A skier triggered a size 2.5  which was initiated on a crust which was buried February 11th and then proceeded to step down to basal facets causing the slide to dig to the ground and take the entire depth of the snowpack along with it.  He took a ride for about a 100 meters and luckily pulled out of it.  Yesterday there was report of a size 2.5 -3.0 off of Mt. Robertson that went ran to valley bottom and likely could have took out the normal path that ski tourers would take if exiting down the Robertson glacier and out the valley for the French/Haig/Robertson traverse.

Up on the Spray today, light convective flurries continued with intermittent windows of good visibility.  The recent storm (30-35 cm) snow has had some wind affect in specific treeline and alpine features that are exposed to the winds. So expect to see this in cross wind affected and in the immediate lee of the wind.  Anticipate a bit of reverse loading as the upper flow is from the northwest so keep a sharp eye out for recent wind slabs on south through easterly aspects in the alpine.  Within the mid depths of the snowpack are crusts buried from early March and February that we have seen little activity on but remain fantastic bed surfaces for avalanches especially in the presence of wind slabs.  In the alpine, I am probing constantly to make sure I'm not walking into shallow, rocky snowpack areas where the potential for triggering deeply buried facets from early January is still possible.  The big thing to keep in mind over the next few day is there is great deal of storm snow available for the wind to have its way with it and build some nasty wind slabs that could spoil your day.