New snow has made a soft snowpack even softer. A strong snowstorm on Monday deposited up to a foot of low-density snow in the Selkirk and Cabinet Mountains. Expect very deep and unconsolidated snow conditions. Winds have been strong enough to transport a lot of snow and create fresh wind slabs and cornices. Human-triggered and natural avalanches are possible in most terrain above 35 degrees and are likely on steep, wind loaded slopes
The Selkirk's and Cabinet mountains snowpack is made up of mostly loose unconsolidated snow on the surface which can lead to Dry Loose avalanches on slopes above 35 degrees. I don't anticipate these conditions to change soon as another storm arrives tomorrow.
New Storm Slabs have formed over the past 48 hours. There was a lot of snow avalible for transport and a lot of wind. Expect to find new storm/wind slabs on slopes near ridgelines and above treeline. We observed a Storm Slab avalanche release on a ski cut.
Yesterday, we took the snowmobiles up to Lunch Peak via Trestle Creek. We encountered a couple new inches of snow in the parking lot, but that amount quickly increased as we headed up to higher elevations. By the time we got up to the 9 mile area, there were significant amounts of blowing and drifting snow. We chose not to take the snowmobiles for the last .25 miles because of the huge drifts and crazy wind etching. We skied the rest of the way up to Lunch Peak.
At the top, we found strong winds out of the southwest transporting a ton of snow on to the N-NW side of the ridge. The snow was 210 cm deep at the ridge with wind effect. We descended from about 6600’ to 5600’ to dig a data pit. The snow was incredibly light which made for difficult travel conditions.
The mountains have seen a lot of new snow recently which has settled nicely. When we assessed temperatures in the data pit, we found that the new snow is 2 degrees warmer than the surface snow. This temperature gradient coupled with warmer air temperatures could make the new snow slab up quicker than we’ve seen in the past couple storms. Notably, we did trigger a small new snow slab release with a ski cut on a 38 degree slope.
The recent snow has created dangerous avalanche conditions on steep slopes. Have a heightened awareness near wind loaded slopes and evaluate terrain carefully.
**Beware of Snow Immersion. In deep snow, it is possible to get stuck in tree wells or just the deep snow***.
