Ward Canyon

We started our tour up Ward Canyon around 0800. Felt nice to have the return of winter and new snow under our feet. We immediately noticed signs of instability on our ascent. The new storm snow in this area had not bonded well to the old interface. Ski kick tests and hand shears all proved to fail repeatedly on the melt-freeze old interface, behaving like a storm slab. As we gained higher in the terrain we noticed more of a wind slab development. We chose to ski the ridgeline down and avoid the larger pieces of avalanche terrain. Half way down our descent we stopped on top of a known avalanche path in the area. We talked briefly about avoiding this piece of terrain and chose to ski cut / traverse across the top of the slope one at a time. Once the first rider went across an avalanche released as expected but to our surprise it propagated across the slope 600ft wide. The crown was 1-1.5ft in depth. We verified that this avalanche failed on a melt-freeze crust (second rider rode on bed surface and confirmed). On our second lap, we carried a similar terrain strategy and avoided the larger pieces of open avalanche terrain at midslope ridgeline elevation; we observed fresh cornices and more reactivity, despite it being more stubborn on N. aspects. We did trigger another small slab avalanche (D1) on a mid-slope convexity. This failed on a similar melt-freeze crust underneath and was 1-1.5 feet in depth. We did see one other skier triggered avalanche (D1.5) on a midslope convexity, Northeast, just below 8,000'. Both did appear to entrain old snow, which we suspected were near-surface facets. Overall riding conditions were good, and travel was much improved by increased coverage in this area. Because of post storm instability and elevated sensitivity to trigger (with potential for propagation), careful terrain management both on uptracks and descents as well as nuanced terrain familiarization was key on this considerable hazard day.

Ward Canyon

Quick report

Weather

Avalanche