Continue to practice good travel habits: regroup in safe locations, limit the number of people exposed to avalanche terrain, and be suspicious of shallow or rocky ridges and start zones.
Weak, faceted grains make up the basal snowpack. Where supportive to riders, a melt-freeze crust may be providing a bridging effect, making it more difficult to trigger deeper layers. Triggering an avalanche this deep will likely be large and destructive. Be especially suspicious of shallow or cross-loaded areas with variable snow depths.
Wet loose avalanches were reported Friday with warming temperatures.
Please continue to share any observations or photos on the Mountain Information Network.
Wet flurries and high freezing levels produced moist surface snow above 2100 m. As temperatures cool a crust will form.
A facet/crust layer is down 50-90 cm (and 2-10 cm thick at TL elevation), and the mid-pack below is settled and consolidated.
Another crust/facet layer is down 70-150 cm. Below this crust, the basal snowpack is weak and faceted. Treeline snow depths average 120-200 cm.
Saturday night
Cloudy with isolated flurries Light south ridgetop wind. Treeline low temperature below -4 C. Freezing level falling below 1000 m.
Sunday
Isolated flurries through the day, up to 5 cm. Increasingly gusty southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature around -1 C. Freezing level 1500 m.
MondayCloudy with flurries, up to 5 cm. Light southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline high temperature -1 C, freezing level 1300 m.
TuesdayCloudy with isolated flurries. Light southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline high temperature -3 C. Freezing level 1100 m.
More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.
