Avalanche Forecast

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New snow is slowly accumulating in Alpine areas.  Keep an eye on freezing levels and input from new snow and winds and temp.  Ice climbers who are travelling in gullied terrain accessing early season ice routes should be travelling with avalanche gear where appropriate and think about overhead terrain.  Our observations are very limited at this time of year so this is more of a "heads up" to get people to start thinking about avalanche season. 

Small thin slabs have been observed in steep alpine terrain along ridgelines. Some loose slides have also been observed as temperatures warmed up. Ice climbers should be thinking about avalanches right now despite many of the approaches being snow free. Overall observations are very limited at this time of year.

First of all, observations are VERY limited. Snow is beginning to accumulate in Alpine areas despite many lower elevations areas being snow free. Reports from last week in the Aster Lake area was up to 60cm of snow in Alpine terrain with pockets of snow along ridgelines and other areas up to 1m deep. Our weather stations are just coming online for the winter here and we are just updating and maintaining them so some of the readings regarding snow depths may be slightly off. As of 4pm on October 20th, the alpine looked to be a pretty snowy place.