Avalanche Forecast
Avalanche Forecasts are for use by experienced backcountry travelers in uncontrolled sidecountry and backcountry terrain. These forecasts and conditions do not apply to open, in-bounds terrain at ski resorts, which is subject to avalanche control by local resort ski patrol.
Avalanche Rating
Moderate (2)
Searching for dry snow after the warmup will steer you toward terrain where persistent slabs remain a concern. Keep up the conservative terrain selection on a day of snowpack reassessment.
More Detail
To get the complete forecast with additional graphics and details, please view the Avalanche Canada Zone forecast provided by Avalanche Canada.
Snowpack Discussion
A melt-freeze crust or moist snow likely makes up the surface on solar aspects and on all aspects below about 1700 m. This crust tops the upper part of 30 to 60 cm of snow from last week that was redistributed by variable wind in alpine. About half of this snow overlies a crust formed early in the storm. It otherwise overlies faceted snow.
A weak layer of preserved surface hoar or facets from late January is buried 80 to 130 cm deep. This weak layer was active during the warmup and remains a concern where strong surface crusts haven't formed. The lower snowpack is generally well-settled, however at least one deep persistent slab ran naturally during the warmup.
Avalanche Activity
Explosives in the Fernie area Saturday yielded persistent slabs in the size 2 - 2.5 range with crowns 100 cm deep.
We have an initial report of a natural size 3 in the Little Sand area on Friday, likely another persistent slab.
The field team saw a bunch of fresh persistent slabs in Corbin Thursday.
These avalanches fit a recent pattern of heightened persistent slab activity on a range of aspects, mainly in the alpine.
A natural size 3 deep persistent slab was also seen Wednesday.