Observation: Cardiff Bowl

The plan was to head up to Pole Line Pass and drop into Cardiff then head down canyon and hopefully get out of the strong wind. The wind gusts started cranking in the strong category as soon as we started to ascend the ridge that leads you to Cardiff Bowl. When we got to the flats under Cardiff bowl the wind was really blasting and moving allot of snow. We headed toward British Bowl which is the steep roll-over facing a little SW right off the flats, only time I've really seen this slope active is when we have the dreaded easterly winds, upon approach we remotely triggered a wind slab on the steep upper section of the slope. A spider web of cracks were apparent but not much movement of the slab because down lower on the slope the slab wasn't as thick. Inspection of the fractures showed a 8 to 10 inch dense wind slab that broke on light density snow that the slab formed on top of. After standing there trying to get a few photos in the middle of a ground blizzard we decided it was time to bail on our Cardiff plans, and pulled the plug.

Photos: remotely triggered wind slab, crown, wind blasting on the bench.

I think the wind slabs will settle out fairly quick but after seeing that much snow transported by the wind its hard to go with anything but considerable.

The new snow down out of the wind was light density, but most of the snow we encountered walking up Pole Line Pass was inverted by the wind, denser on top light density below, there was also somewhat of a rime crust forming on the snow surface down low out of the wind at lower elevation.