Avalanche Forecast
Avalanche Bulletin - Jasper National Park
Good skiing in wind sheltered treeline locations.
Avalanche Problem 1: Storm Slabs
What Elevation?
Which Slopes?
Chances of Avalanches?
Expected Size?
Travel and Terrain Advice
- Be careful with wind loaded pockets while approaching and climbing ice routes.
- Use caution on open slopes and convex rolls
Avalanche Problem 2: Cornices
What Elevation?
Which Slopes?
Chances of Avalanches?
Expected Size?
Cornices are growing with fresh snow additions. Several failures were noted from the past 36hrs triggering slabs below
Travel and Terrain Advice
- Pay attention to overhead hazards like cornices which could easily trigger deep slabs.
Avalanche Problem 3: Persistent Slabs
What Elevation?
Which Slopes?
Chances of Avalanches?
Expected Size?
Wind slabs sit on a hard melt-freeze crust on solar aspects, and facets on polar aspects. Assess the bond at these interfaces carefully before committing to to a slope.
Travel and Terrain Advice
- Be careful with wind loaded pockets, especially near ridge crests and roll-overs.
- Avoid shallow snowpack areas where triggering is more likely.
Avalanche Summary
Explosive work today in the Icefields area produced numerous soft slab up to size 2.5 from all aspects. Although mostly thin storm stabs some of these stepped down to the March 15th interface. Also noted at TL and above from the past 36hr numerous; point release from steep rocky terrain, cornice failures and slab releases up to size 2.5.
Snowpack Summary
A variety of slab conditions exist on most aspects at treeline and above. 10-20cm of recent storm snow has created a soft storm slab. This storm slab is up to 30cm thick . Below this, older slabs up to 60cm thick sit on a sun-crust on solar aspects and facets on polar aspects. Below treeline the snow is shallow.
Weather Forecast
Cooling temps overnight as the arctic air takes dominance. Light shifting winds from S to E will leave some good snow in sheltered treeline locations for Sunday. This will be topped up by snow flurries of up to 5cm under mostly cloudy skies. Freezing levels are expected to stay near valley bottom elevations.
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Explosive work today produced numerous results on this storm slab interface. Typically 50m or less but with larger triggers up to 100m. It is expected this instability will settle out quickly as there is no significant sliding interface.