Spring-time skiing means getting an early start and an early finish to your day, avoiding the heat in the afternoon.
Weather Forecast
Today will be mainly cloudy with snow arriving later in the afternoon/evening. Freezing levels may rise as high as 1700m, but then drop with the arrival of the trough. Winds will be light to moderate from the SW at ridgetop. Snow should ease Friday morning, with unsettled conditions and flurries through Friday afternoon.
Snowpack Summary
Temperature crust on solar aspects, the Mar 22 down ~ 30-50cm, the Mar 13 crust down 75cm, the Mar 2 down 1-1.5m. On north aspects the upper snowpack consists of settling storm snow to about 1600m below which there will be a crust. The Feb 10 surface hoar crust layer is down 2m.
Avalanche Summary
There was very little activity observed yesterday, probably due to the cloud cover hanging overhead for most of the day. A size 2 slide was observed from a steep N-facing start-zone west of Rogers Pass.
Confidence
Due to the number of field observations
Problems
Loose Wet
Loose Wet avalanches are the release of wet unconsolidated snow or slush. These avalanches typically occur within layers of wet snow near the surface of the snowpack, but they may quickly gouge into lower snowpack layers. Like Loose Dry Avalanches, they start at a point and entrain snow as they move downhill, forming a fan-shaped avalanche. Other names for loose-wet avalanches include point-release avalanches or sluffs. Loose Wet avalanches can trigger slab avalanches that break into deeper snow layers.
Persistent Slabs
Persistent Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer of snow (a slab) in the middle to upper snowpack, when the bond to an underlying persistent weak layer breaks. Persistent layers include: surface hoar, depth hoar, near-surface facets, or faceted snow. Persistent weak layers can continue to produce avalanches for days, weeks or even months, making them especially dangerous and tricky. As additional snow and wind events build a thicker slab on top of the persistent weak layer, this avalanche problem may develop into a Deep Persistent Slab.