Avalanche Forecast
Avalanche Bulletin - Banff, Yoho, and Kootenay National Parks
The new snow should improve the ski quality for Sunday but watch for wind loaded pockets at higher elevations. Start and finish early to take advantage of the lower hazard during the cooler parts of the day, and enjoy the spring skiing!
Avalanche Problem 1: Wind Slabs
What Elevation?
Which Slopes?
Chances of Avalanches?
Expected Size?
Travel and Terrain Advice
- Be careful with wind loaded pockets, especially near ridge crests and roll-overs.
- The recent snow may now be hiding windslabs that were easily visible before the snow fell.
Avalanche Problem 2: Loose Wet
What Elevation?
Which Slopes?
Chances of Avalanches?
Expected Size?
Temperatures should remain fairly cool on Sunday, but if the sun does come out watch for rapid warming of the surface snow and solar triggered sluffing as a result of this.
Travel and Terrain Advice
- Use extra caution on slopes if the snow is moist or wet.
- Watch for clues, like sluffing off of cliffs, that the snowpack is warming up.
Avalanche Problem 3: Persistent Slabs
What Elevation?
Which Slopes?
Chances of Avalanches?
Expected Size?
Not much activity on this, but a few avalanches last week were deeper than the majority. Some of these clearly stepped down to the March 15 crust on solar aspects. On shaded aspects these were likely sliding on facets formed at the same interface.
Travel and Terrain Advice
- Avoid shallow snowpack areas where triggering is more likely.
Avalanche Summary
Limited observations on Saturday with some thin new surface slabs reactive to ski cutting in steep lee areas. Lots of loose wet avalanche activity on steep solar aspects in the past several days when the sun was out. Explosive control at Sunshine produced one size 2.5 cornice failure on Friday.
Snowpack Summary
5-10cm of snow with very strong SW winds on Saturday has formed new wind slabs above treeline. Buried temperature crusts exist to 2000m on all aspects and to ridge tops on solar slopes, including the Mar 15 sun crust down 40-70 cm in the alpine. Moist snow at lower elevations, with the entire snowpack becoming moist near valley bottom.
Weather Forecast
Cool temperatures and a few flurries are forecast for Sunday. Alpine winds will start out in the Moderate range from the West and slowly diminish during the day. Skies will clear later in the day Sunday as the high pressure system moves in and we get set for the next few days of clear skies and increasing temperatures.
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New wind slabs from Saturday will likely be reactive to skier traffic in lee areas on Sunday. The buried winds slabs from the previous week are losing sensitivity, but may still be present in isolated alpine locations.