Recent strong winds out of the SW have scoured snow from some areas and deposited windslab in others. Pay attention to the texture of the surface snow and avoid steep terrain with wind effect.
Ice climbers: gully avalanches may run further than expected given the dry, sugary snow in all the avalanche paths.
A few cm of new snow with a lot of westerly winds have created small windslabs in alpine and isolated treeline areas. We suspect these are small in most areas, but a size 2 natural was observed on Mt. Dennis in Field that may have initiated as a windslab.
As the wind redistributes the snow and conditions change, this problem may become more reactive. Fresh windslabs may step down to the weak snow on the ground and result in larger, more destructive avalanches. Large open slopes at the treeline and in the alpine remain suspect.
Local ski hills were reporting small windslabs 10-15 cm deep that were failing with explosives in alpine and isolated treeline terrain.
In Yoho, a natural size 2 ran to the bottom of the runout in one of the avalanche paths between Carlsberg and Guinness.
A few cm of new snow and a lot of wind has created windslabs in the alpine and at treeline. These sit on a layer of facets and surface hoar that may or may not become a bad sliding surface. The middle and bottom of the snowpack are weak, with depth hoar and facets near the ground. An average of 60-100cm of snow can be found at treeline elevations.
We are in a period of active weather, although not much snow is forecast. Thursday should be mostly sunny with moderate to strong NW ridgetop winds. Friday into Saturday we should see a few centimetres of snow with extreme SW winds diminishing throughout the day on Friday. Temperatures will remain cool throughout the period.
