Avalanche forecast

Kootenay Boundary

Feb 21 – 22, 2026Avalanche Canada
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Archived · expired 7 months ago

Avalanche danger

Mon
Tue
Alpine
2 · Moderate
Treeline
2 · Moderate
Below
2 · Moderate
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Highlights

Choose low-angle slopes without terrain traps to gather information in your area.

A weak layer exists in the upper snowpack and may be triggered by riders.

Avalanche problems

  • Persistent Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Unlikely - Possible
    Size
    2–3

    The load has increased over weak layers in the upper snowpack consisting of surface hoar/crust/facets.

  • Storm Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Possible
    Size
    1.5–2.5

    Recent storm snow, around 30 cm, has added load to a complex upper snowpack.

Confidence

Moderate

  • We are confident that there are persistent slabs in the snowpack, but uncertain about how likely they are to trigger.

Avalanche Summary

On Thursday there was a small rider-triggered slab near Edgewood, as well as numerous dry loose avaanches near Nelson.

On Wednesday there was a report of a size 2 skier triggered storm slab avalanche running on surface hoar buried in mid-February.

Earlier in the week there were several MIN posts describing small to large human-triggered and remotely triggered slab avalanches failing on crusts and/or surface hoar layers down roughly 30-50 cm.

Snowpack Summary

20 to 25 cm of storm snow has buried a complex upper snowpack. This region is highly variable, with similar weak layers that vary widely in depth and distribution:

  • On February 13th, a surface hoar layer and/or a crust on solar aspects was buried.

  • On February 7th, a surface hoar layer/crust layer (depending on aspect) was buried.

  • On January 26th, a surface hoar/crust layer sitting on a facet layer was buried and is down 60 to 80 cm.

This weak snowpack structure will continue to produce avalanches as storm snow settles.

The mid and lower snowpack remain well settled.

Weather Summary

Friday Night
Mostly clear skies. 10 km/h south ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -12 °C.

Saturday
Mostly sunny. 20 km/h south ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -9 °C.

Sunday
Mostly cloudy. 2 cm of snow. 30 to 50 km/h south ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -5 °C.

Monday
Mostly cloudy. 5 to 10 cm of snow. 40 to 60 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -4 °C.

More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.

Terrain and Travel Advice

  • Keep your guard up as storm slabs may remain sensitive to human triggering.
  • Storm slabs in motion may step down to deeper layers resulting in large avalanches.
  • Be aware of the potential for remote triggering and large avalanches due to buried surface hoar.

Regions covered