Wind slabs are the main concern. Be cautious when transitioning into wind-affected areas. Back off if you encounter whumpfing, shooting cracks, or hollow sounds.
Previous southerly winds have built wind slabs on exposed lee terrain features in the alpine. Keep your guard up as you transition into wind-affected terrain.
On Friday, a size 1 skier triggered wind slab avalanche was reported just outside the region near Mount Carmack. See MIN for details.
A skier remote, size 1.5 slab avalanche was also observed in Haines Pass. This avalanche is believed to have occurred 24 to 48 hours prior to the time of observation. See MIN for details.
If you head into the backcountry, please consider posting a MIN report with photos and observations from your day.
20 to 50 cm of storm snow has been redistributed by southerly winds. This snow overlies a melt-freeze crust on solar slopes, hard, wind-affected snow in exposed areas, previous storm snow in sheltered spots, and facets or surface hoar on shady slopes.
Reports from the eastern portion of the White Pass area indicate a surface hoar layer 30 to 50 cm below the surface is reactive in snowpack tests and remains a concern.
A weak layer of facets sitting on a crust that formed in early December is buried 70 to 200 cm deep on all aspects up to 1750 m. This layer has not produced recent avalanche activity or test results and is not currently a concern.
Snow depth varies from 100 cm at highway elevations to over 300 cm in the alpine.
Saturday Night
Mostly clear skies. 10 to 25 km/h north ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -17 °C.
Sunday
Mix of sun and cloud. 10 to 25 km/h northwest wind. Treeline temperature -16 °C.
Monday
Mix of sun and cloud. 30 to 50 km/h southwest wind. Treeline temperature -10 °C.
Tuesday
Cloudy with light flurries, 1 to 5 cm of snow. 30 to 40 km/h south wind. Treeline temperature -8 °C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
