Haines Pass — Avalanche Forecast

On Wednesday, our field team reported some pinwheeling on slopes facing the sun. They also saw a small, isolated wind slab avalanche that was likely a couple of days old.Also, just outside of our forecast area, several small (size 1) wind slab avalanches were reported in alpine and treeline terrain. On Tuesday, sluffing was reported in steep terrain.

10 to 25 cm of recent snow has been redistributed by variable winds over a supportive crust on all aspects, except possibly very high elevation, north-facing terrain.On north through northeast aspects, there may be a layer of weak, feathery surface hoar near the bottom of this upper layer of soft snow. This weak layer may be very spotty and has been hard to locate.A layer of weak, sugary facets over a crust is 80 to 150 cm deep in the alpine. It has not shown any signs of avalanche activity recently, but there is a small possibility it could still be triggered by large loads, like a cornice fall, or in thin-to-thick snowpack transitions. It could also become a threat again as temperatures rise and the sun comes out.