Alpine: Low Thursday, Moderate Friday
Treeline: Low through Friday
Below Treeline : Low through Friday
Travel Advisory : The past few days have brought a total of nine cm of new snowfall along with light South and South-Easterly winds. Cornices are large and still have the potential to fail. Stay well back from the edge and leave a wide safety margin if you need to travel below them. Bear in mind that some of the numerous cleaves that have been forming behind cornices may be bridged over with light amounts of snow hiding the underlying crack.
Avalanche Activity: Some pocket instabilities were reactive to ski testing yesterday to the lee of ridge tops and terrain features in the high alpine, but with little in the way of destructive potential. Large cornice falls still have the potential to dig down to the December layer and release large slabs in some isolated areas.
Snowpack: The upper snowpack appears to be generally well consolidated. Profiles in the sheltered terrain at and below treeline elevations have been showing Moderate compression tests down 25 cm on buried surface hoar from Jan. 24 th . The deeper buried weaknesses from early December are well bridged over in most areas but may still present themselves as failure planes with sufficient loading in areas where the snowpack remains relatively shallow.
Weather: A mix of sun and cloud today and tomorrow will give way to increasing cloud cover tomorrow afternoon on the approach of a weakening system bringing flurries Thursday night and Friday. There is little change expected to occur over the weekend from the pattern seen during the past week or so.
Conditions may vary and can change rapidly. Check for the most current conditions before heading out into the backcountry. Daily updates for the areas adjacent to Whistler Blackcomb are available at 604-938-7676, or surf to www.whistler-blackcomb.com/weather where there is also a link to the CAA public avalanche bulletin, or call 1-800-667-1105.
- Whistler Mountain Snow Safety
