Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Toured 4 days in a row (Fri-Mon) in upper Grant Creek and Finley Creek through the arctic event, skiing all aspects of the compass. Found generally stable snow conditions, with solar aspects all sporting a dense and supportable crust that was thankfully consistently being buried in small increments throughout the weekend. New snow was bonding well, except in isolated steep (leeward/east facing) terrain. Winds were shifting throughout the event between the West and North, transporting the ultra low density snow easily. As for the snow, each day featured a few inches (2-3") of new and unforecasted snow. In steep leeward terrain just below alpine ridgelines, skiers were easily able to trigger isolated soft, wind slab avalanches in deposition nooks. These were easily identifiable, but did propagate readily 30-40' laterally and 6-12" deep. Below ridge line (and out of the arctic wind), enjoyably cold temperatures and 30-1 SLR snow made for extremely palatable sliding.
Avalanche
Skiiers intentionally triggered multiple small D1, R1 soft windslabs (6"-12") in the low density arctic snow on leeward east aspects in isolated terrain catches in the alpine.