Cool temperatures decrease hazard. If a thick crust is present, large slab avalanches are unlikely.
Back off if you find moist or wet surface snow; large slab avalanches remain triggerable.
Two reactive layers exist in the upper snowpack. One is down 40 cm and the deeper one down 80 to 150 cm. In areas where a thick, supportive crust exists these avalanches are unlikely.
Warm temperatures and sunny skies may produce wet loose avalanches, especially on steep slopes facing the sun.
These may step down and trigger deeper slab avalanches.
On Wednesday, several large persistent and wet avalanches were reported, up to size 3. These avalanches are the tail end of a widespread, large natural avalanche cycle.
While temperatures are now cooling, large avalanches remain possible where hard surface crust does not exist.
Expect to find 5 to 10 cm of snow overlying a thick melt-freeze crust at higher elevations. This crust is expected to be at the surface below 1500 m.
Two layers of surface hoar and sun crust can be found in the top meter of the snowpack.
A widespread crust formed in early February is buried about 80 to 150 cm deep. This crust has a layer of facets above it, producing the previous large, natural avalanche cycle.
Thursday Night
Partly cloudy. 15 km/h west ridgetop winds. Treeline temperature around -6 °C. Freezing level drops to surface.
Friday
Sunny. 10 km/h west ridgetop winds. Treeline temperature around -3 °C.
Spring diurnal cycle begins, freezing levels dropping to surface overnight and rising to about 1500 m during the day.
Saturday
Cloudy. 10 km/h northeast ridgetop winds. Treeline temperature around -3 °C. Spring diurnal continues.
Sunday
Partly cloudy. 10 km/h northeast ridgetop winds. Treeline temperature around -4 °C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
