Avalanche Forecast

Fair - Timing of incoming weather is uncertain on Saturday

Another dry, bright day for Thursday, although high cloud may begin to develop in the afternoon. Freezing levels should rise to around 1500 m. Light westerly winds. On Friday, another mainly bright day with some clouds building through the day. Freezing levels will hover around 1500 m. On Saturday, freezing levels will fall to about 500 m and a frontal system will bring light or locally moderate precipitation, which should fall as snow, although there is the possibility for a little bit of rain at the beginning of the storm. Gusty winds will be a feature of the next storm.

No avalanches have been reported recently from this region.

The upper snowpack comprises a series of storm snow layers, which have generally bonded well to each other and are now gaining strength. Rain fell recently to approximately 1800 m, and has left behind a crust, now buried by a skiff of snow. In the alpine, above the elevation where rain fell, fresh new wind slabs have developed in response to strong southwesterly winds. Winds also blew from the north for a while, and there are reports of areas where reverse loading is an issue. Concern for lower snowpack layers remains only in low snowpack areas, such as the east side of the Duffy or in the Chilcotins. If you're a keen follower of the bulletins you'll notice I've taken the persistent weak layer problem out of the primary problems for this region. It really seems as though this layer has been sufficiently buried for long enough that it no longer pose a threat in the vast majority of locations. If you're riding steep aggressive lines in open terrain in one of the shallower snowpack areas mentioned above, I would still be concerned with deeply buried persistent weak layers. The layers of concern are surface hoar and/or facets associated with a crust from mid-December and/or sugary facets at the base of the snowpack, particularly in sheltered treeline areas that are unusually shallow or on slopes where you can see rocks poking up out of the snow.