Continue to assess the wind effect as you gain elevation. Wind slab could be more sensitive to rider traffic where it overlies a crust.
wind slab can be found in alpine and exposed treeline terrain. Sensitivity to triggering is greatest where wind slab has formed over a crust.
Thursday night: no new snow expected. Light to moderate west winds and a low of -14at 1600m.
Friday: cloudy with flurries in the evening bringing up to 5cm of new snow. Moderate west winds and a high of -3 at 1600m.
Saturday: stormy with up to 10cm of snow expected and moderate to strong southwest winds. Freezing levels rising to 1600m.
Sunday: stormy with 15 to 20cm of snow and moderate southwest winds. Freezing levels around 1600m.
No new slab avalanches were reported on Wednesday.
On Tuesday a group of skiers remotely triggered a slab avalanche on an east aspect near ridgetop. We suspect it failed on the facets above the late February layer. Wind loading above this layer was a factor.
On Monday, ski cuts produced size 1 wind slab and loose dry avalanches. Explosive control work on steep shady treeline features produced no results.
5-10cm of lightly wind affected recent snow sits over a sun/temperature crust on solar aspects and below 1800 m.
Although we haven't seen recent activity on a couple of weak layers buried in January, they still appear in snowpack models and local operators continue to track them. These consist of a layer of surface hoar and a crust buried more than 1m deep in most places.
