Avalanche Forecast
Issued: Mar 3rd, 2015 7:18AM
The alpine rating is , the treeline rating is , and the below treeline rating is Known problems include Wind Slabs.
Peter,
Avalanche Canada
Snow quality should be slightly improved, but be wary of touchy thin wind slabs and loose snow sluffing in steep exposed terrain.
Summary
Confidence
Good - The weather pattern is stable
Weather Forecast
A very persistent ridge of high pressure will maintain dry and mainly sunny conditions for… a long time (at least a week, but probably longer). Temperatures should slowly rise with a freezing level near 1200-1400 m on Wednesday, 1500-1600 m on Thursday, and around 2000 m heading into the weekend. Ridge winds should be generally light but gusting to moderate from the NW-SW.
Avalanche Summary
On Monday there were reports of small rider-triggered loose snow avalanches in steep terrain. It might also be possible to trigger thin pockets of wind slabs in exposed lee terrain.
Snowpack Summary
Shady and sheltered slopes have around 5-10 cm of fresh low-density snow, with thin wind slabs forming in exposed lee terrain. Sun-exposed slopes likely have a thin sun crust on the surface. The most prominent feature in the snowpack is a thick crust, down 5-30 cm. This crust is supportive all the way to ridge crest and is effectively "capping" the snowpack, keeping riders from tickling any deeper weak layers. There are still weak layers below this crust that we'll continue to monitor, but for now these layers are dormant. We would likely need significant warming and/or heavy loading to re-activate them.
Problems
Wind Slabs
Light new snow combined with moderate (variable) winds have created pockets of thin wind slab in the immediate lee of ridge crests and terrain features.
Avoid exposure to terrain traps where the consequences of a small avalanche could be serious.>Use ridges or ribs to avoid pockets of wind loaded snow.>
Aspects: All aspects.
Elevations: Alpine, Treeline.
Likelihood
Expected Size
Valid until: Mar 4th, 2015 2:00PM
