It's still a good time of year to be cautious with your movement and terrain selection.
Be wary of deeper, wind-loaded slopes where the buried weak layer is on the verge of being overloaded.
The most likely place to trigger an avalanche is in wind-loaded terrain where there is more snow on top of a layer of weak, feathery crystals buried in mid November.
Use extra caution below ridgecrests and in cross-loaded features.
On Monday, west of Smithers, wind-affected snow was reported to be cracking around skis. This suggests that wind slab avalanches were possible in steeper, more wind loaded terrain.
On Tuesday, our field team had concerning snowpack test results on the same surface hoar layer (buried in mid November) related to this Mountain Information Network report.
Expect to find soft snow over settled snow and layer of weak, feathery crystals in sheltered areas around treeline and above.
Moderate to strong southwest through northwest wind may have formed small pockets of wind slab on leeward slopes. This is of most concern on sheltered features, where another layer of weak feathery crystals is buried up to 35 cm.
The early November crust is buried at about 60 cm with small facets above it.
At treeline, the snowpack depth ranges from 60 to 80 cm, decreasing to about 30 cm at valley bottom.
Tuesday Night
Partly cloudy. 1 to 3 cm of snow at treeline. 25-50 km/h west ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -2 °C.
Wednesday
Mostly cloudy. 1 to 3 cm of snow at treeline. 25-50 km/h west ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -1 °C.
Thursday
Mostly cloudy. 2 to 5 mm of precipitation as snow or rain at treeline. 40 km/h west ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature 0 °C.
Friday
Mix of sun and clouds. 2 to 10 cm of snow at treeline. 10 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -3 °C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
