Conrad Janzen and I have been working in the Valkyr Range the past few days. This area is on the western front of the Selkirks, south of Nakusp.
We have 25 cm on the storm board over the past 4 days.
Beneath the storm snow we have an overall thin, weak, facetty snowpack here but not much tension in it at treeline and below. Some more settlement and load is needed to create a widespread slab instability that will propagate. We have limited observations in the alpine, but we suspect there is more stiffness in the mid-pack and therefore greater potential for larger avalanches.
About 5 days ago there were isolated avalanches on steep terrain in the alpine and treeline, often triggered by cornice falls, to size 2 and with limited propagation. More recently we have only seen thin soft slabs to size 1, but visibility has been limited.
The weak snowpack is not confidence-inspiring and we have been limiting ourselves to smaller treeline and below treeline slopes of moderate steepness. We have been avoiding exposure to the runouts of large slopes in the alpine.
Mark Klassen
Mountain Guide