Fresh snow with cold weather is offering excellent riding, but it's critical to approach avalanche terrain cautiously because large storm slabs are still possible.
Weather Forecast
MONDAY: Mix of sun and cloud, moderate northwest wind, alpine temperatures around -10 C.TUESDAY: Mostly sunny, light northwest wind, alpine temperatures warming to -5 C.WEDNESDAY: Sunny, light wind, inversion forming with alpine temperatures possibly reaching above 0 C.
Avalanche Summary
Storm slabs were very touchy on Saturday, with numerous reports of human-triggered and natural avalanches in the size 1-2 range. A ski cut on a wind-loaded northeast feature near Revelstoke propagated down to the late November crust and produced a size 2.5 avalanche.
Snowpack Summary
Snow from last week's storms is settling and getting redistributed by northwest winds. Roughly 30-70 cm of recent snow sits above various crusts from the warm weather in late November. Reports suggest the snow is bonding to the crusts so far, but there's potential for this layer to develop into a bigger problem in the near-future. Snow depths decrease rapidly below treeline, where the primary hazards are rocks, stumps, and open creeks.
Problems
Storm Slabs
Storm Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer (a slab) of new snow that breaks within new snow or on the old snow surface. Storm-slabs typically last between a few hours and few days (following snowfall). Storm-slabs that form over a persistent weak layer (surface hoar, depth hoar, or near-surface facets) may be termed Persistent Slabs or may develop into Persistent Slabs.