Ski conditions at upper elevations have recovered dramatically since last week, don't let sunny skies and great skiing drive your decision making process.
Weather Forecast
A ridge of high pressure is building over Western Canada that is forecast to bring settled weather through the week. Skies will be mostly clear, with light and variable ridge top winds, and freezing levels remaining near valley bottom.
Snowpack Summary
10-15cm new snow near the divide Friday night created touchy storm slabs. At treeline and in the alpine this covers the previous layers of stiff windslab over a couple of buried crusts, down as deep as 55cm and 70cm (widespread below 2200m and extending into the alpine on solar aspects). Below treeline is dust on crust over a strong snowpack.
Avalanche Summary
A few natural size 1.0-2.0 storm slab avalanches have been observed and reported over the weekend. Ski cutting on Saturday and Sunday easily produced size 1.0 storm slab avalanches in sufficiently steep terrain (it's easy to imagine that these would have been up to size 1.5 in larger terrain features)
Problems
Storm Slabs
Storm Slab avalanches are the release of a cohesive layer (a slab) of new snow that breaks within new snow or on the old snow surface. Storm-slabs typically last between a few hours and few days (following snowfall). Storm-slabs that form over a persistent weak layer (surface hoar, depth hoar, or near-surface facets) may be termed Persistent Slabs or may develop into Persistent Slabs.
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.