West Slopes South

As the snow surface freezes, avalanche concerns should drop to near zero. Instead, you may need to contend with variable travel conditions and thin low elevation snow coverage.

Temperatures are still on the milder side for early February, but they’re cold enough to help the snow surface freeze. This new crust should put an end to any lingering wet avalanche issues for the middle and upper elevations. Lower in the terrain, a general lack of snow and beat-up snowpack has made triggering any impactful slides extremely low. 

There are only a few very isolated places where you could be unlucky enough to trigger a rouge avalanche on Saturday. 

-A few blobs of snow still manage to cling to rocky faces. At this point, they probably won’t fall, but they could. You don’t want to be under one if it decides, "now is the time." Don’t linger underneath steep rocky slopes. 

-If the surface crust breaks down and you punch into deep wet snow, you could trigger a slide on very steep slopes. This will also be most likely in rocky areas where the added warmth prevents the snow from freezing solid. 

-At the highest elevations, you could see pockets of snow about the size of a dining room table. These small thin slabs don’t pose much of a threat, but don’t get surprised in high-consequence terrain. 

Generally, as we exit wet cycles like this and the snowpack freezes, our attention turns to travel conditions. Punchy snow, breakable crusts, icy surfaces, open holes, flowing creeks, glide cracks, and piles of debris can all make travel much more challenging. 

It’s not all doom and gloom. Observations from Friday indicated a more supportable crust above 6000ft and a dusting of new snow in the Crystal area. Lower in the terrain, the recent rains took a big toll on the snowpack. Many areas now have thinner and/or discontinuous snow coverage. As temperatures cool, the crust should become stronger and more supportable throughout the terrain.