Increasing southwest winds and light new snow amounts have begun forming new wind slabs on north to east aspects. Beneath the surface, the snowpack is currently quite stable in most places, however a buried weak layer still exists down 20-60 cm. This layer consists of a sun crust on steep south facing slopes, and/or weak surface hoar crystals on more shaded and sheltered slopes. The surface hoar is most prominent at treeline. Although it is slowly healing into the snowpack, it may still react to triggers in areas where surface hoar is sitting on the crust. This combination is most likely found on steep south facing terrain at treeline.At the base of the snowpack is a crust that formed in late October. The probability of triggering this layer is low, but the most suspect areas would be large, steep, rocky alpine features with a shallow snowpack. It would likely take a large trigger such as a cornice fall to produce an avalanche on this layer.Snowpack depths decrease dramatically with elevation.
The VARDA gang produced a great video from the Allan Creek zone near Valemount, click here to check it out.