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)
Wind slabs that overlie faceted snow could remain surprisingly reactive to human triggers. Err on the side of caution when evaluating older slabs, especially near shallow, rocky areas.
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
Light new snow amounts have been combining with an aging wind slab problem and with otherwise heavily wind affected surfaces in the alpine and at treeline.
The crust from early December is now buried approximately 30 to 50 cm deep. In some areas, large surface hoar crystals are found at this interface. We are trying to track the distribution of this surface hoar across the region. Faceted snow is perhaps more likely to find at this interface and poses a similar problem.
The are no layers of concerns below the early December crust.
Avalanche Activity
Skiers remote-triggered a large wind slab from 100 m away in the Little Simpson area on Hudson Bay Mountain on Monday. It failed on faceted snow, a reminder that persistent grains may extend the reactivity of wind slabs.
Up north, a 40 cm-deep layer of surface hoar on the early-December crust was recently reactive to skiers in the Ningunsaw area. The Ningunsaw slide path produced size 2.5 and size 3 avalanches on Monday and Tuesday night.
Share your observations on the MIN!