Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Due to the number of field observations

Thursday: Mainly cloudy / Moderate west winds with extreme gusts / Freezing level at 1500mFriday: Mix of sun and cloud with some flurries / Moderate west winds with extreme gusts / Freezing level at 1400mSaturday: Mainly cloudy / light winds / Freezing level at 1100m

On Monday there was widespread natural and human-triggered activity within the top 15cm of snow to size 1 in the Elk Valley South area. The activity occurred in response to new snow and wind. On Christmas Eve explosives control in the region produced a few size 1 wind slabs. On the same day a backcountry skier triggered a size 2 slab avalanche on an alpine slope in the Harvey Pass area. The slab was reportedly 70cm deep and 150m wide and was thought to have slid on the late-November crust/facet interface. There were no reported injuries with the avalanche.

There appears to be a lot of snowpack variability across the region. Snowpack depths at treeline seem to vary from 50 - 110 cm with high variability in wind-exposed areas. Mostly modest amounts of low density snow have fallen over the last week and have likely been shifted into small wind slabs in exposed areas. Located just below the surface is a layer of weak faceted crystals which formed during the cold snap at the beginning of December. At this point, there does not seem to be enough of an overlying slab to create a widespread problem. In the mid pack is the late-November/early-December interface which is made up of surface hoar, a crust, and/or facets. This layer is typically down 30-70cm and has reached the tipping point for rider triggering in the Harvey Pass area. Check out this video of a recent snowpack test on this layer. A buried crust from mid-November can be found near the base of the snowpack below 1650 m and is breaking down into facets.