Land-Mina

We spent the day under snowy skies while riding in the Clemina area. A weak, sugary snowpack felt like bottomless powder but our tracks were actually trenching along near the ground narrowly avoiding objects hidden in the snow. These sugary crystals, called facets, bond poorly to each other leaving a soft unsupportive snowpack. Facets not only struggle to hold up sleds but their weak bonds can leave lingering problems in the lower snowpack. This could be a problem later when new snowfalls load this sugary base. With poor visibility we rode the open grassy meadows to avoid wrecking sleds on the obstacles (stumps down low, rocks up high) littering cutblock and alpine slopes.

Snowfall obscured views of the alpine so we couldn’t see how much it was blowing but down where we rode it was calm.