Cold weather continues to dominate the weather and decision making this week. Avalanche conditions are slow to change under such cold temperatures, but we continue to get reports of wind effects and occasional wind slabs in alpine areas. The snowpack in Little Yoho is deeper than further east and the ski quality here has been better.
Lingering hard wind slabs exist on alpine lee features. Potential failure planes are old weak facet layers or the Jan 30 layer of facets, sun crusts, and isolated surface hoar beneath the recent snow.
No new avalanches were observed or reported on Wednesday.
However, on Tuesday in the adjacent region of BYK, we investigated the Quartz skier accidental avalanche near Sunshine Village, where the start zone was 48° and the failure plane was an old layer of weak facets down 50 cm. The avalanche was triggered from a very shallow, faceted location and the crack propagated into the thicker snowpack nearby and released the avalanche. This is a classic avalanche release pattern.
25-30cm of settled snow from last week has been redistributed by the wind in exposed locations, burying the Jan 30 weak layer. The mid and lower snowpack is well settled, with tree-line snow depths ranging from 120 cm to 180 cm.
The Arctic ridge of high pressure continues to dominate the region and we can expect mostly clear skies (a few clouds), very cold temperatures (highs -15, lows -25), no new snow and light winds from the north. This pattern shows no sign of breaking down until a slight change on the weekend.
