Warm temperatures have melted a considerable amount of snow and toppled our ice climbs. Poor travel conditions below treeline make traveling on the trails the only safe option. The best skiing right now is on someone else's skis.
Weather Forecast
Gradual cooling begins Friday with freezing levels dropping to 1800m. Hazard will drop as slopes begin to refreeze. A small amount of snow may arrive Saturday with modest winds .Cooling continues Sunday with freezing levels reaching 1300m.
Snowpack Summary
A thin rain crust up to 2300m and an isothermal snowpack to about 1900m. Little Prairie plot: 20cm rain affected base with 20cm of moist snow above. At 2200m 25cm of early Nov crusts at base, 5cm of mid Nov facets under a 5-10cm crust formed by rain that began Nov 26. Above this sits a well settled slab up to 130cm deep in loaded areas.
Avalanche Summary
Loose moist activity has been occurring over the last three days. Most of these events have been out of very steep and rocky terrain. This activity has been a result of the extreme heating and rain that has also created a zero degree snowpack to the ground to an elevation of about 1900m and toppled most of the frozen waterfalls.
Confidence
Freezing levels are uncertain
Problems
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 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.