Avoid all avalanche terrain.
Lots of snow and wind is overloading buried weak layers. Natural and human-triggered avalanches are likely.
This crust/facet combo layer is now buried up to 65 cm deep. Avalanches releasing on this layer will be large, dangerous, and unexpected.
It is also possible to trigger an avalanche from a distance.
Up to 40 cm of new snow with more coming down has formed a reactive storm slab. These slabs will be more reactive where they overlay facets or surface hoar.
Significant avalanche activity is expected to have occurred on Saturday but no new reports have come in at the time of publishing.
On Friday several small and large (size 2) storm and persistent slab avalanches were rider-triggered at treeline and above. Sometimes remotely from up to 100 m away.
On Thursday several small persistent slab avalanches were triggered by riders failing on the crust layer from early February.
20 to 30 cm of recent snow with a lot more on the way sits on a drought layer of sun crust, weak sugary facets, surface hoar, and or lower elevation crust.
Another layer of surface hoar is down around 30 to 60 cm in sheltered areas.
The widespread crust buried in early February is down 50 to 75 cm and has sugary facets on top. In most places, this crust is widespread up to 2400 m.
The base of the snowpack is still loose and faceted in shallow rocky alpine areas.
Saturday Night
Cloudy with 15 to 25 cm of snow. 35 to 45 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -4 °C.
Sunday
Cloudy with 15 to 30 cm of snow. 45 to 55 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -5 °C. Freezing level 1500 m.
MondayCloudy with 10 to 20 cm of snow. 15 km/h west ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -12 °C.
TuesdayCloudy with 10 to 20 cm of snow. 10 km/h west ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -15 °C.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
