Small windslabs may be found in alpine terrain. These have been generally small and stubborn to trigger but may be enough to ruin your day in steep terrain.
Winds overnight on Wednesday created a thin layer of hard windslab in many alpine lee features. This adds to older windslabs that existed in isolated alpine terrain and may be triggerable in some areas. Be cautious of steep wind affected alpine terrain.
No avalanches observed or reported in Little Yoho, however, in neighboring areas:
On Thursday, local ski hills were reporting thin hard windslabs ~ 10cm thick from the overnight winds. These were quite small in size and not overly reactive to skiier traffic.
There was a significant avalanche just west of our region that likely failed on the Jan. 30th layer in an area with a deeper snowpack and more of a slab above this layer.
30-40 cm of snow from last weekend has been affected by the wind in exposed alpine locations. This recent snow has buried a weak layer of facets, sun crust and surface hoar. This layer (Jan. 30th), has the potential to become a dangerous sliding interface as the snowpack deepens and a cohesive slab builds above this layer. The mid and lower snowpack is well settled, with snowpack depths at the treeline ranging from 120cm to 180cm.
Dry and cold conditions will persist. Winds will be light on Friday and increase to moderate from the west overnight and into Saturday. We may see a trace of snow on Saturday night and winds will decrease on Sunday.
