Avalanche Forecast

Low - Uncertainty is due to the limited number of field observations.

Clear, cold, and dry weather moves in for the week with strong east/northeast winds.

Tuesday night: Scattered clouds, alpine temperature -18 C, moderate to strong east/northeast winds, no significant precipitation expected.

Wednesday: Clear skies, alpine temperature -18 C, strong east/northeast wind, no significant precipitation expected. 

Thursday: Clear skies, alpine temperature -15 C, light easterly wind, no significant precipitation expected. 

Friday: Clear skies, alpine temperature -13 C, light easterly wind, no significant precipitation expected.

We're flying nearly blind here with very limited observations, but we suspect there was a natural avalanche cycle over the weekend. If you're out in the backcountry, we would love to hear from you! You can submit your observations via the Mountain Information Network.

Winter is slowly descending into the valleys with about 70 to 90 cm of snow at 1200 m and 90 to 160 cm at treeline.

The weekend storm produced 30 to 60 cm of snow (check out this MIN report Monday). Strong east/northeast winds on Wednesday are expected to redistribute the recent snow into wind slabs sensitive to human-triggering.

On steep south facing slopes in the alpine the new snow rests on a crust. A crust is also present on all aspects below 1600 m and many locations have surface hoar (feathery crystals) on top of the crust.

There are a variety of crusts in our young snowpack, but a problematic rain crust down about 50 to 100 cm is beginning to stand out. This "October Crust" is showing sudden & repeatable results when subjected to snowpack tests. Avalanches failing on this interface have the potential to be large and could easily surprise users who are getting out onto snow for the first time this season. There's a great "pre-storm" summary of conditions at Allan Creek here.