East Slopes Central

With challenging travel conditions on sunny slopes, avalanches may not be the main hazard you encounter. Make sure to bring appropriate equipment to prevent long, sliding falls on slick, icy crusts. Isolated pockets of wind-drifted snow could produce small avalanches, so use caution in terrain where a small slide could have significant consequences. 

There is some uncertainty about the potential for low cloud cover, but we expect Thursday to start with clear, sunny skies before becoming increasingly cloudy in the afternoon. With filtered sunshine in the afternoon, we don't expect significant wet, loose avalanche activity. However, you should monitor the surface conditions, and if the snow starts to feel wet and punchy, move to lower angles or shady slopes. 

Recent winds may have formed isolated shallow wind slabs at upper elevations in very steep, confined alpine features. These slabs likely won't pose much of a hazard unless you are in extreme terrain where getting knocked off balance could have serious consequences. 

This week, NWAC forecasters in East Central found firm, supportable crusts on East, South, and West aspects. North-facing slopes still held shallow, dry snow and more pleasant travel conditions. We observed a few older, small wind slabs, but the miniature fresh wind slabs were just a few inches thick. On Thursday, cooler temperatures and westerly winds prevented slopes from softening, and travel on steep slopes required ski crampons or booting. Make sure you prepare and bring appropriate equipment for these conditions.

Below the thick surface crust, the snowpack is still moist down to the January Drought Layer (JDL), which is buried just over two feet deep. On these sunny slopes, the JDL presents as a two-inch-thick melt-freeze crust. Below the JDL, the snowpack is strong, well-consolidated, and has a favorable structure. After all the rain, warm temperatures, and sunshine, we have few concerns about avalanches on the JDL or other weak layers.

It is worth remembering that the nearby East North zone still harbors a more evident persistent slab problem. On Sunday, NWAC Forecasters in that zone observed recent slab avalanches up to D3 in size that slid on the JDL. The avalanche that resulted in a fatality on February 28th also ran on the JDL. So, be slightly more suspicious of it further north or at very high elevations above the approximately 7000-ft rain/snow line.

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