If the surface crust is breaking down, it's time to turn around!
Starting early and finishing early are imperative with the strong spring sun and long days.
Cornices will weaken with daytime warming. Pay attention to these large triggers lurking on ridge top features throughout the park.
Overnight cloud cover will limit crust recovery tonight. This means any sunshine tomorrow will have an impact faster than the last few days. Assess the surface crust strength of your line before committing and be mindful of your overhead exposure.
Loose wet avalanches to size 2 were observed today from steep, rocky, S-facing slopes in the alpine.
A MIN reported loose snow avalanches on the steep S slopes of Swiss Peak Wednesday.
Neighboring operations have been observing solar triggered loose snow avalanches out of steep terrain this week, up to size 2. A few natural cornice failures have been observed up to size 2.5
The most recent storm snow that fell in the alpine has been settled and squished by the warm temperatures on all but the highest North facing slopes. A decent corn snow cycle has been occurring on solar slopes, but timing is everything! With forecasts for rising freezing levels and poor overnight "re-freeze", we could see the snowpack rapidly deteriorate and become isothermal. Expect poor travel conditions below treeline.
The ridge of high pressure breaks down Sunday. Expect mixed skies and convective weather.
Tonight Cloudy with clear periods. Alpine Low 2°C. Light NW Ridge winds. Freezing Level (FZL) 2400m. Alpine temperature inversion
Sun Mix sun/cloud. High 3 °C. Light N wind. FZL 2400m
Mon Isolated flurries. High 2°C. Light SW wind gusting to 40km/h. FZL 2400m
Tues Mix sun/cloud. High 0°C. Moderate W wind. FZL 2100m
