I just got down from a flight from Squamish over Diamond Head to Harrison Lake.
Summary:
I can't make a call on the hazard rating because I havn't been in the snow yet but the avalanche hazard is greater the further east one travels in the coast mountains. In Garibaldi Park there is enough snow to produce dangerous avalanches at treeline. Flat faces with smooth ground surfaces and wind loaded features are much more likely to slide. Stay away from glaciers.
Some more details for those of you that are heading out there in the near future:
It was clear today with some nasty looking weather looming to the west. There was snow down to 2500ft in the west and as low as 1500ft to the east. It was -4 at 6500' at 10:30am over Garibaldi.
It is hard to tell from the air but if there is 100cm in Whistler and 150cm at Diamond Head then there was probably about 60-80cm over the Chehalis and Golden Ears Park in the alpine.
There was a little sluffing due to the sun as we were flying and evidence (especially out east) of small avalanche cycle to size 2 that occurred last Tuesday late in the storm. The slides were mostly NW aspect starting in isolated areas at and just above treeline. It looked like very few areas had reached the snow threshhold needed to produce avalanches and the places that did slide were on flat rocky faces and cross loaded gullies. Most of the peaks in the Chehalis and Pitt area are no higher than 7000 feet. The slides ran from ridge top (usually above treeline) to at most 4000ft asl. I didn't see any slides in Garibaldi.
Glaciers were riddled with crevasses covered with sagging weak shallow bridges.
Cheers,
Conny Amelunxen
ACMG MG
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