Lizard-Flathead

A weak layer of sugary crystals has been recently buried and will likely be a problem for a while.

It's uncertain how widespread this layer is. Avoid terrain traps.

Moderate

• We are confident that there are persistent slabs in the snowpack, but uncertain about how likely they are to trigger.

On Thursday, several persistent slabs were remotely triggered above Sparwood. Also, there were a few large avalanches triggered with explosives near Castle.

On Wednesday, there was a report of a size 2 naturally triggered storm snow or persistent slab avalanche near Elkford at around 1900 m.

There has been a report of an avalanche fatality in the neighbouring region within the Flathead range on Tuesday. See this MIN post for more details.

Roughly 20 to 40 cm of storm snow has accumulated earlier in the week. Storm slabs likely sit over:

• Soft, weak, faceted snow, possibly topped with small surface hoar crystals in sheltered areas.

• Wind-pressed snow in high elevation lees.

• Crust on exposed windward features, south aspects and low elevations.

The remainder of the snowpack is well consolidated, containing a number of crusts which are not of concern at this time.

Friday Night
Clear skies. 20 km/h west ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -13 °C.

Saturday
Mostly sunny. 20 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -12 °C.

Sunday
Mostly sunny. 20 to 60 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -8 °C.

Monday
Mostly cloudy. 5 to 10 cm of snow. 40 to 70 km/h southwest ridgetop wind. Treeline temperature -5 °C.

More details can be found in the Mountain Weather Forecast.

• In times of uncertainty, conservative terrain choices are our best defense.
• Avoid terrain traps such as gullies and cliffs where the consequence of any avalanche could be serious.
• Fresh snow rests on a problematic persistent slab, don't let good riding lure you into complacency.
• Keep in mind that human triggering may persist as natural avalanches taper off.