Avalanche Forecast

Good

Synopsis: The ridge of high pressure will maintain dry and mild conditions on Wednesday. Freezing levels could climb to a little over 1500 m and ridge winds remain light. Expect more cloud with a chance of flurries on Thursday. The freezing level should drop back to 1000-1200 m and we could see periods of moderate SW winds. The next big system appears to arrive on Friday bringing moderate to heavy precipitation, rising freezing levels, and strong SW ridge winds.

Recent avalanche activity has progressed from a relatively small natural avalanche cycle on Saturday and Sunday, to numerous explosive and rider triggered avalanches up to size 2 on Monday. Most of the recent activity has been from wind loaded features at or above treeline, with some smaller skier controlled results on steep convex rolls below treeline. The likelihood of triggering stubborn wind slabs may be decreasing with cooler temperatures and drier conditions.

Up to 50 cm of recent storm snow sits on a hard crust and/or surface hoar layer. Strong SW winds redistributed snow in exposed terrain creating deep and dense wind slabs in lee features. The new snow seems to be bonding well to the crust, which is most pronounced between about 1500 m and 2200 m. The distribution of the surface hoar seems spotty across the region, but some operators found it to be widespread in their tenure before the snow began burying it. Where the surface hoar exists, whumpfing indicates the touchiness of this interface. Deeper snowpack weaknesses have fallen off the radar, but they could be reawakened with a very heavy load (like a cornice fall or wind slab) in the wrong spot (like a thin snowpack area).