Skiing conditions have been excellent on sheltered northerly aspects.
Cornices are big and will fall down at some point. This could be enough to trigger a larger avalanche.
Snow and wind from last week formed wind slabs that may still linger in alpine terrain. We have had few reports of these lately but suspect there are still lingering pockets that may be reactive
A facet/crust interface from Jan is buried 70–180 cm deep. We are still seeing some hard, sudden test results at upper elevations (>2300m) where the Mar 20th rain crust does not exist. Large triggers like cornice falls or surface avalanches may trigger this layer.
Lake Louise ski hill reported triggering some thin wind slabs with explosives in the alpine, which could be thicker in uncontrolled, out of bounds terrain.
Otherwise no new avalanches observed or reported.
A few cms of new snow sits on variable wind effected snow in alpine and treeline features. A surface crust exists on solar aspects and on polar aspects up to 2100 m.
On polar aspects, 10–50 cm of snow overlies the March 20th rain crust, below 2300–2100 m, with some moderate sudden planar results.
Cornices are large and we are seeing regular failures.
The Jan 24th facet layer is buried 70–180 cm at treeline and in the alpine, some tests still producing hard, sudden results
An upper ridge brings mainly benign weather for the next few days.
Friday: night: Low -5 °C at treeline
Saturday: Cloudy. 40 km/h west ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -4 °C.
Sunday: Mix of sun and cloud. 30 km/h west ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -3 °C.
Monday: Mix of sun and cloud. 30 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature 0 °C.
