Avalanche Forecast

Moderate - Freezing levels are uncertain

The ridge over the province begins to break down on Friday with increasing clouds on Saturday and perhaps some flurries on Sunday.  Expect winds to be generally light and southerly.  The BIG news is the increasing freezing levels on Saturday(~2000m) which may be followed by poor crust recovery Saturday night and even higher freezing levels on Sunday(~2200m).

On Monday, 2 sledders were killed in an avalanche near Blue River. We still have very little information about the incident. More details will be made public as they become available. In recent days, a smaller surface avalanche stepped down and triggered a size 3 slab on a southwest facing slope at treeline. The late February surface hoar layer was the likely weak layer associated with this avalanche. This illustrates the potentially touchy and destructive nature of the late February interface. Solar radiation and increasing freezing levels will become the driver for natural avalanche activity in the coming days.

At ridgetop, cornices are huge and could become increasingly touchy with forecast solar radiation. Convective flurries on Wednesday produced highly variable amounts of low density snow ranging from 15-30cm.  Moderate westerly winds have created fresh wind slabs on lee features at treeline and in the alpine. The new snow overlies buried wind slabs. 70-100cm below the surface you'll find a persistent weak layer comprised of surface hoar, facets and/or a thick crust. This layer seems variably reactive. In other words, it's still really touchy in some places while in other spots it's really tough to trigger, and there's not much of a reliable pattern telling us what exact aspects are most suspect. I'd continue to be suspicious of steep, unsupported features at treeline and in the alpine as this layer has the potential for very large avalanches. Below this interface, the snowpack is generally gaining strength.