Avalanche forecast

Waterton Lakes

Dec 23 – 26, 2015Parks Canada
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Archived · expired 11 years ago

Avalanche danger

Wed
Thu
Alpine
2 · Moderate
Treeline
1 · Low
Below
1 · Low
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Highlights

Great skiing will be the reward for the hard work that trail breaking has become. Eat lots of Christmas cookies before you head out.

Avalanche problems

  • Wind Slabs

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Unlikely
    Size
    1–3
    These are now hidden under the low density new snow.

  • Loose Dry

    • Alpine
    • Treeline
    • Below treeline
    Likelihood
    Likely
    Size
    1–2

Weather Forecast

A quasi stationary arctic front slowly making it's way down from the North East over the next couple of days will bring continued light flurries accompanied by light and variable winds and cooling temperatures.

Snowpack Summary

Up to 20cm of low density snow has fallen since Dec 20th with LNE wind. This has buried several layers of wind slabs formed by previous strong SW winds. Below this is the Dec 9th crust (now down 40-70cm), which has not been reactive, but has future potential. The mid/lower snowpack is strong & consolidated. Travel below 1800m is steadily improving.

Avalanche Summary

Several size 1 loose snow avalanches, both natural and human triggered, have been observed and reported in the past couple of days.

Confidence

Due to the quality of field observations

Regions covered