Got to Goat Bowl

We headed into Clemina to follow up on some previous MINs from November that talked about those large, feathery crystals we call surface hoar. We staged at 5km on the Clemina FSR. The access was bony until the gravel pit at 1300 m where it picked up to 30 cm. By the turn off for Morning Glory Bowl the snowpack was 60 cm and in the Goal bowl it was 90-110 cm deep. It's still a bit willowy and pretty whooped up, but access isn't half bad considering there's no snow on the edges of the highway. Up in the Goat Bowl (~2050 m), we found a size two avalanche on a northwest aspect right at the top of treeline that looked like it was a couple days old. Turns out the cause was the surface hoar (SH) we were looking for! We found two layers of SH down 35 and 75 cm that will be worth keeping an eye on. We dug at a couple profiles near 2000m and while we were able to find the SH in many places, our test results varied from stubborn (CTH) to unreactive (CTN) in nature. Meanwhile, the weather was a mix of sun and clouds in the alpine with no real snowfall while we were in the field. Temperatures were mild again with -4ºC at treeline and +1 at the truck. Southerly winds were blowing a little snow along the ridgelines. For us, the big thing now is to continue verifying conditions before committing to terrain. There seems to be a lot of variation across riding areas, elevations, and aspects. We will be getting our hands in the snow a lot to make sure the conditions where we are match what we are expecting!