Mount Whymper, Vermillion Peak, and Simpson Area avalanche closure zones are CLOSED on Thursday, March 17th for avalanche control.
20-30 cm of recent storm snow and moderate to strong alpine winds has created windslabs in lee alpine and treeline terrain. Continued moderate wind & light flurries may contribute to slab development Thursday.
Buried crust/facet layers exist in the upper snowpack on solar aspects and may be more reactive with the new snow load. These persistent layers can be tricky to assess so use caution on slopes where they are present.
SW flow continues for the next few days, expect mainly cloudy conditions and isolated flurries on Thursday and Friday with moderate west winds. Alpine temperatures expected to be in the -5 to -12 range.
15-30cm of new snow overlies a variety of surfaces including a buried sun crust on solar aspects, previous wind effect, and soft snow on polar aspects. Several buried sun crust layers exist on solar aspects, the most concerning being the Feb 16 down 40-60 cm and Jan 30 down 50-80 cm. The lower snow pack is generally well settled
Local ski hills reported a few explosives triggered windslab avalanches in the alpine up to sz 1.5 otherwise no new avalanches observed or reported.
