Jan 23, 2026 3 min read Powder Highway Backcountry Conditions Report

Omega Block

What a change it's been from early January; the big snowfall went out hot and wet and the sky went blue. What that has meant for the majority of the Powder Highway region is lacklustre skiing. There have been numerous heli ski operations that have put their programs on hold and some cat operators are running groomer programs...imagine that.

The southern end of the region is worse off than the north, yet, even the west side of the Northern Selkirks have a breakable rain or melt freeze crust into the alpine. The eastern side of the Northern Selkirks, particularly the Esplanade Range faired much better. While the melt freeze crust is variable in its distribution, it is 3mm thick, faceting out in most places and skis quite well.

In all honesty, we've had an amazing week of skiing here at Golden Alpine Holidays Meadow Lodge. We enjoyed great warmed powder skiing on solar aspects early in the week. As the temperatures cooled off, we focused more on skiing sheltered north and east aspects where we found exceptional settled powder skiing in the alpine all the way to 1500m. There was significant surface hoar growth to 30mm and surface faceting. Here's some video footage if you'd like to check it out.

Snow Pack Concerns:

Cornices have been the only source of avalanche activity aside from tapering windslab activity in the past few days. The roots of cornices are starting to facet out with the cold dry temperatures. Solar input can cause them to fail as well.

Jan 2 PWL The Jan 2 PWL will remain on the radar, but it has been unreactive over the past week to skier traffic and cornice fall.

Outlook

We are in the midst of a dominant high pressure that looks like it will persist through early next week. The long term forecast does show approaching lows and light precipitation starting as early as Monday in Rogers Pass.

When the snow begins to fall, it will fall on a widespread surface condition, consisting of facets, surface hoar and melt freeze crusts. This layer will become one of the significant PWL's of the season and we will be dealing with it for the foreseeable future. Here's the Rogers Pass avalanche forecast. Check out the Mountain Weather Forecast here.