"Patience" is the operative word for navigating decision-making related to the current avalanche hazard.
Continue to avoid avalanche terrain and areas with overhead hazard.
With recent winds, the sun coming out, and gradually warming; natural and human-triggering large avalanches are likely.
Dry loose avalanches out of steep terrain will increase with wind, solar, and warming. Recent storm snow has been redistributed into lee areas by moderate to strong winds from the W and NW. Look for locally deep deposition areas and avoid them.
40-80 cm of soft slab overlies the Feb 3 interface. Widespread natural, explosive, and skier-triggered avalanches have occurred on this interface. Avoiding avalanche terrain and overhead hazard is the only reliable way to deal with this layer.
Some recent avalanches are stepping down to the weak basal facet and depth hoar layers near the ground resulting in large avalanches. This seems to be most common in thin, steep, rocky terrain in the alpine.
Ski hills in the region continue to see results from explosive control, both wind slab and Feb 3rd persistent avalanches up to size 2.
Continued evidence of the widespread natural cycle from several days ago up to size 3.5.
50-90 cm of snow fell from Feb 23 to March 2. This snow is continuing to settle into soft slabs and has been blown into wind slabs at upper elevations. These slabs overlie the weak Feb 3 facet/crust layer that is down 40-80 cm and exists up to 2500 m and higher on solar aspects. The lower snowpack consists of several facet layers and depth hoar and is weak in shallow areas. Mosquito Creek Profile
Temperatures are forecasted to slowly increase over the next few days along with clearer skies and increased solar input. Winds will remain light with no fx precip.
Wed Night: Cloudy with clear periods. Alpine temps: Low -19 °C. Light ridge wind. No precip.
Thursday: A mix of sun and cloud. Alpine temps: High -9 °C. Ridge wind west: 10-20 km/h. No precip.
Fri/Sat: Cloudy with sunny periods, and possible flurries.
