Be on the lookout for wind slab development throughout the day on Tuesday.
Merry Christmas!
Previous strong winds have stripped exposed alpine and tree-line terrain, creating wind slabs in cross-loaded and lee features. Recent Northerly wind may have caused reverse loading in some areas.
You must keep this basal layer on your radar as triggering is possible in some features, like approaching or moving between pitches on ice climbs. Be cautious in steep terrain if you find yourself standing on the surface and not wallowing in facets, that's the problem slab.
No new avalanche activity reported today.
Minor sloughing in steep alpine terrain and a small pocket of windslab from cornice trigger being reported on Dec 23 .
Previous strong winds have stripped exposed alpine and tree-line terrain, creating hard wind slabs in cross-loaded and lee features. The snowpack is 45-80cm deep and is weak and facetted throughout. Basal weaknesses are a combo of large facets and chains of depth hoar.
An Ice Climbing Conditions report is available here.
The Mountain Weather Forecast is available at Avalanche Canada https://avalanche.ca/weather/forecast
Monday
Cloudy with sunny periods and isolated flurries. Trace amounts of precipitation. Alpine temperature: Low -13 °C, High -8 °C with ridgetop wind southwest: 15 km/h.
Tuesday
Mainly cloudy with isolated flurries and trace precipitation. Ridge wind southwest: 15 km/h gusting to 40 km/h
