Watch for windslabs as you transition into treeline and above terrain. A great nugget of advice was recently passed on from a seasoned avalanche professional; Its a winter for touring not turning. Think about the weak base layers and the potential for a large avalanche.
Recent variable strong winds have created and added to previous windslabs that formed in Alpine and treeline areas. In addition, there are several iterations of buried wind slabs formed in previous wind events down 30 to 50cm in the snowpack.
The alpine is still variable in total amounts of snow but the basal layers haven't changed. The entire lower half is either facets, or depth hoar. Thin weak areas should be treated as suspect and avoided.
One new sz 2 avalanche was observed in the Buller Mountain area that was triggerred by a cornice collapse.
Up to 35cm of recent storm over the past few days is being moved around by the strong winds creating and adding to the previous windslabs that existed in the region. Field teams have been finding easy shears down 25-35cm, and these shears that are reactive to skier traffic. Moderate shears also persist down 30 to 50cm on various versions of old wind slab interfaces. The midpack is strong in deeper snowpack regions near the divide, but the basal facets/depth hoar persist. An avalanche initiated in the upper snowpack could easily step down to the deep persistent weak layers, causing a very large avalanche. Always have full depth avalanche on your mind.
Well the light snow did continue during the day but now seems to be tapering off here later in the afternoon. Saturday will be light for winds and a mix of sun and cloud but... cooler air is moving in so overnight lows will be around -20C. Daytime highs will get up to -12C but its still winter out there. Not much for new snow in the near future.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
