Eastside Region

There's minimal avalanche danger and little change in the weather.  Challenges may come from travel on breakable crusts or firm snow surfaces. Getting knocked off your feet or hitting a shallowly buried obstacle in steep terrain can still have severe consequences.

While much of the Intermountain West is contending with lingering persistent weak layers, we continue with a persistently stable (and thin) snowpack. This weekend brings the promise of cold temperatures, and a modest amount of snow in the most favored parts of our forecast area near the crest in Mammoth and Virginia Lakes.  Cool temperatures and an uptick in winds will likely not have too much impact on the snowpack heading into the weekend, unless we get more precipitation than forecasted. 

Travel conditions are your most important consideration heading into the mountains today. The combination of extreme wind events from around the compass during the past several weeks and sunny weather have brought us a mix of surfaces. We have everything from slick, icy, and firm supportable crusts, sastrugi, windboard, as well as breakable crusts of varying thicknesses. In some colder and more sheltered areas, expect to find pockets of soft, dry snow overlying these firmer surfaces. Considering if you need crampons, ski crampons, or ice axe for safe travel to your objective can increase your margin for safety. Shallowly buried obstacles still present one of our biggest hazards.