Hello
and good morning, this is Toby Weed of the
Current Conditions:
There’s still nice spring powder on upper and mid elevation north
facing slopes in the backcountry, but even with fairly cool air temperatures yesterday,
the high-angle sun baked the snow surface, crusting up all other slopes. You can ride anywhere these days, with
supportable snow under the newer stuff except on north facing upper elevation
slopes. It is currently 15 degrees at the CSI weather
station on
Avalanche Conditions:
The Sunday night/Monday
storm was fairly generous for most of the mountains of
Triggered
wind slab avalanches are possible on steep upper elevation slopes with
significant deposits of recently drifted snow. Fresh drifts should be fairly obvious, and you
should avoid them on steep slopes. The
huge cornices in the region now present an obvious danger, especially when it’s
windy or warm. Large cornices may well
still be sensitive to your weight today and may break further back than you
expect. It is always a good idea in the
spring to stay out from under these monsters, (photos from 3-29).
Cloud
cover and cool temperatures should keep things fairly quiet, but as is
typical in the springtime, wet avalanches may become possible on
steep slopes as warmth from even short periods of sunshine turns the fresh
surface snow into slush. This time of year, any solar warming can be
very intense and when the fresh snow becomes saturated it is prone to
avalanching. You might find even smallish wet avalanches entraining lots of mass
and traveling far.
Bottom Line:
There’s a MODERATE avalanche
danger on steep, drifted or corniced slopes in exposed terrain at upper
elevations in the backcountry, and you could trigger wind slab avalanches on some
very steep slopes. Wet avalanches may
become possible on some slopes steeper than about 35 degrees if the sun comes
out for even a little while, and the fresh surface snow is warmed and becomes
saturated.
Mountain Weather: Should be mostly cloudy this morning
with light winds and a chance for an inch or two of snow. Expect clearing this evening and fair weather
developing tomorrow with a high pressure system for Friday. A smallish storm is expected Saturday morning
and continued unsettled weather through the weekend, with yet another cold
storm possible early next week.
Check
out the images page for photos of some of this season’s avalanches.
Go to the Avalanche
Encyclopedia if you have any questions about terms I use in
the advisory.
I'm very interested to know what you're seeing out there.
Please e-mail observations to me at [email protected] or leave me a message
at 755-3638, especially if you see or trigger an avalanche in the backcountry.
We keep all observations confidential.
This advisory will expire in 24 hours from the posting time.
The information in this advisory is from the
U.S. Forest Service, which is solely responsible for its content. This
advisory describes general avalanche conditions and local variations always
occur.