20-30cm of recent settled snow has refreshed the skiing in many areas. Southern aspects have a temperature crust that makes skiing challenging but north sides still have good snow down to the valley floor.
Isolated windslabs in alpine areas along ridgelines. These slabs do not appear to extend far downslope. Be sure to assess local wind affect in areas you are travelling.
This layer is the Feb 2 crust. More prominent on polar aspects.
Facets near the base of the snowpack may be trigerred from thin areas. Low probability high consequence avalanches should be in your mind.
No new natural avalanche activity was observed or reported on Saturday.
20-30cm of recent settled snowhas fallen under the influence of the up slope and convective storms moving through the region this past week. This snow has seen very little wind affect but there is a sun crust on solar aspects making the skiing challenging in some areas. Recent snow is overlying the March Temperature crust that is found on all aspects except high pure north alpine areas. So far, the bond with the new snow and the underlying crust is good. Deeper in the snowpack the February 3rd crust still exists but avalanche activity on this layer has decreased since the warm temps last week settling out the snowpack. It is still worth digging and poking down to evaluate this layer.
Light snow is forecast to continue with accumulations around 5cm. Winds will continue to be light out of the E and skies will generally be a mix of sun and cloud. Temperatures will be -10C overnight warming up to -5in the middle of the day. Not much changing weather wise.
Be aware that when the sun does come out it packs a punch at this time of year and quickly snow stability will deteriorate on the solar aspects. Thin cloud can also lead to a "Greenhouse effect" that can also make the upper snowpack moist and unstable. Lots going on in Spring!
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
