Good skiing can be found at alpine and tree-line elevations, but many early season hazards are still exposed below tree-line. Carry a headlamp and get back to your vehicle early; these are the dark days of December.
Weather Forecast
A cold air mass moving down from the north will bring cooler temperatures and dry conditions for the next 4-5 days. For today, expect a mix of sun and cloud, no precipitation, an alpine temperature of -10, light winds and freezing levels at 800m. The high pressure system will be fully established by early next week.
Snowpack Summary
40cm of snow covers a surface hoar or suncrust layer at TL & sheltered ALP locations. Winds have created a soft slab on this layer in specific lee or cross-loaded features. The October 26th crust near ground may be poorly bonded on some high elevation north aspects.
Avalanche Summary
Loose and thin slab avalanches (15-20cm thick) to size 2 were observed from steep south aspects yesterday, while loose dry point releases to size 1.5 were seen coming from steep N aspects. Snow stability tests show resistant planar results in the upper snowpack, indicating that human triggering is possible.
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.