Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Due to limited field observations

Monday: As a Pacific cold front tracks eastward, the region will see light precipitation amounts accompanied by moderate SW winds. Alpine temperatures will be steady around -6.0 with freezing levels around 1000 m.Tuesday/Wednesday: Will see mainly sunny skies with few clouds. Alpine temperatures will be near -7.0, freezing levels will hover around 900 m in the afternoon then falling back to valley bottom overnight. Ridgetop winds will be light from the NW on Tuesday, then blowing light form the SW on Wednesday.

No new natural avalanche activity has been reported. Over the past several days skiers were remote triggering large destructive avalanches (size 2.5) from as far as 800m away. It has been an active recent period, with numerous avalanches reported to have failed on the March 9th layer over the past week.

Anywhere from  35 - 65 cm of recent snow sits on a variety of old snow surfaces, including crusts, previous wind slabs and a buried surface hoar layer (March 9th). The March 9th surface hoar layer has been very touchy in many areas and many large avalanches have released on it.  Recent snowpack tests are showing very easy shears which means this layer should not yet be trusted. The distribution of the surface hoar is variable and it may not exist, or be reactive, in every drainage. Where it does exist, it appears to be present at all elevations, but is likely to pose the biggest threat in the alpine. Recent reports indicate it has been more reactive on south through west aspects, but I wouldn't necessarily trust steep north or east facing slopes at this time either. I suspect cornices have become well-developed and could easily become unstable during periods of warm weather or on slopes receiving direct sun. Most snow surfaces exist on solar aspects up to 2300 m. The mid snowpack is generally well settled and strong.