The skiing is 'all-time', but don't let your snowy goggles obscure your avalanche awareness. Assess snow conditions in your area, be cautious around soft slab in the alpine and manage your sluff.
Weather Forecast
Mainly cloudy with the slight chance of the sun poking through at higher elevations. Light southerly winds, cool temps and minimal snowfall are predicted for the next few days.Possibility of a storm arriving over the weekend.
Snowpack Summary
Excellent skiing over the last week, with incremental snow fall accumulating to 50cm of low density pow. The mid and lower snowpack are well settled and bonded. Periods of moderate winds from various directions have redistributed the snow around in the alpine producing surface roughness and soft slab
Avalanche Summary
A natural cycle occurred yesterday along the highway corridor with numerous avalanches up to sz 2.0 coming out of steep, wind loaded, 'un-skiable' terrain.Numerous sz 1.0 surface sluffs were observed out of steep, rocky features.
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.
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.
Loose Dry
Loose Dry avalanches are the release of dry unconsolidated snow and typically occur within layers of soft snow near the surface of the snowpack. These avalanches start at a point and entrain snow as they move downhill, forming a fan-shaped avalanche. Other names for loose-dry avalanches include point-release avalanches or sluffs.