Warm and Sunny in Elkford!

We needed the sunglasses in Elkford today, and the heavy layers from a few weeks ago stayed at home! Temperatures were +6 °C at 2050 m at Mear Lake. Several large avalanches were observed on the access route, the largest (a size 3) piling debris on the cat road with an average depth of 3 meters. We estimate these avalanches occurred either Sunday or Monday with the precipitation and/or warm temperatures. This widespread avalanche cycle seemed to be specific to the thinner snowpack areas where we suspect there was a consolidated slab over a completely faceted snowpack. For new avalanches today we only observed one very small wet loose from a cutbank slope below treeline. Even with the lack of new avalanche activity, the warm temperatures and sunny skies kept us away from all avalanche terrain while we wait for the snowpack to adjust to the new load.