The new snow that fell over the last few days is as expected, highly unstable due to the underlying sugary faceted grains and icy melt-freeze crusts. But we saw no natural releases yet, even on the Juneau urban and Thane Road paths. The forecast NE winds are likely to trigger a natural cycle in the next few days though, and this snowpack will be extremely sensitive to additional snow or rain.

Until the winds, new snow, rain, or thaw arrive, the danger is that spring sunshine and the first good powder snow in some time will lure people out into a snowpack that is very easily human-triggerable. The weak layers are persistent types that do not settle out and bond rapidly. These faceted layers often remain weak for three to six weeks.

It is a particularly dangerous situation because many people perceive this as a low-snow winter and think of avalanches as a problem only when there is lots of snow. In fact, thin snowpacks develop grains that are much weaker when loaded than thick ones do.

Take extra care to stay off steep slopes of any size and avoid terrain traps and runouts of slopes above. If the wind kicks up or there is new snow, thaw, or rain, you should stay home, go skating, or ride inbounds at Eaglecrest.

Though snow volumes in the starting zones of the larger mainland paths are still small, the fast icy bed surface and snow to sea level make it possible that runouts may reach developed areas if we have enough new or wind transported snow, new snow, or thaw.

Take care, we will not be here to advise you or to rescue you for a couple weeks. You're on your own, if you go into the backcountry choose the lowest risk terrain you can find and treat every steep slope and roll as though it will slide.