Skiumah

We toured in the Skiumah drainage today after six weeks since FAC's last visit.

• Access and snow coverage have improved, but still plenty of alder trees and other surface hazards in this drainage. Skinning and skiing on the trail were sporty 
• In terms of observing recent avalanche activity, Skiumah gets 5 out of 5 stars.  In contrast, ski conditions were frozen avalanche debris with a little soft snow, which earned Skiumah 1 out of 5 stars. 
• Temperatures stayed well below freezing, as the sun did not hit the basin until after 130pm. The surface snow that we traveled on stayed dry all day. We did not travel on snow that was getting solar input.
• We observed fracture lines from a hard slab avalanche of both persistent slab and wet slab characteristics that likely failed during late January's atmospheric river.
• Additionally, soft slab slides of loose dry characteristics were noted on steep aspects across the compass.
• For comparison, there is a photo from February 2023 of the same cliff band we visited today which highlights both (2024)'s increased avalanche debris and relatively shallow snowpack.

In the limited time that we spent traveling on snow that was not frozen avalanche debris, we found soft snow (25 to 30 cm) above a stout crust complex (15 to 20 cm).