Ski quality varies from awful in wind-exposed areas to decent in sheltered spots. Be cautious of lingering wind slabs and continued facetting of the surface snow, which may sluff easily in extreme terrain.
Lingering hard wind slabs exist on alpine lee features. Potential failure planes are old weak facet layers or the Jan 30 layer of facets, sun crusts, and isolated surface hoar beneath the recent snow.
25-30cm of settled snow from last week has been redistributed by the wind in exposed locations, burying the Jan 30 weak layer, and in isolated locations formed now what are aging wind slabs. Specific areas exposed to the wind may have strastrugi. The mid and lower snowpack is well settled, with tree-line snow depths ranging from 120 cm to 180 cm.
Sunday: 2-4 cm of snow, light SE winds and treeline temperatures around -15C. No significant snow in the forecast.
No new avalanches were reported in Little Yoho. In the adjacent Banff region, some small wind slabs (up to size 1.5) were reported with explosives at the Sunshine ski area, and some very small, loose, dry avalanches in extreme terrain triggered by the sun.
