Keep backcountry travel low-risk and close to the car. Temperatures are forecasted to really start dropping and along with some of the shortest daylight hours of the year, any sort of incident (even broken equipment) could quickly become an epic.
Recent winds have redistributed snow to a variety of aspects. Use caution as you transition into wind-affected terrain. Seek out wind-sheltered terrain where you can avoid wind slabs and find great riding.
A handful of size 1 avalanches were reported in the Sun Peaks area Monday-Wednesday this week, these storm and wind slab avalanches were about 30 cm deep, one is covered in this MIN report from Monday.
Please submit a Mountain Information Network report if you are heading to the backcountry!
20-30 cm of available snow has been redistributed by variable winds into fresh wind slabs on all aspects. This snow covers a crust on solar slopes and a layer of weak surface hoar in shaded terrain.
Buried 50-70 cm deep, a layer of surface hoar, crust, and faceted crystals. Observations are limited in this region but this layer has produced numerous large avalanches in the neighboring regions.
Snowpack depths at upper elevations are around 80-100 cm.
Saturday night
Broken skies with isolated flurries, trace accumulation. Light southwesterly ridgetop winds gusting 35 km/hr. Overnight temperatures drop to -16 C.
Sunday
Mix of sun and cloud. Variable light ridgetop winds. Daytime high temperature -18 C.
Monday
Sunny skies. Light ridgetop winds gusting 35 km/hr. Daytime high temperature -21 C.
Tuesday
Sunny with cloudy periods. Southwesterly ridgetop wind 20 km/hr. daytime high temperatures -19 C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
