McGill area
bvotilla,
Tuesday 24th December, 2024 4:00PM
10-20cm HST with periods of moderate snowfall late morning. Winds started calm and increased to moderate (looked strong in alpine) around 13:00.
We found reactive wind slabs near treeline becoming less manageable to ski cut as the day progressed as the slabs grew in depth and cohesiveness. At 11:00 we managed to trigger a D1 windslab from dropping a small cornice above the skiers right gun barrel run. The slab propagated 30 meters wide and ran 30m. We ski cut a slightly smaller slab in McGill Main chute.
Later in the day we found storm slabs in specific locations below treeline defined by shooting cracks and .5 size avalanches on small terrain features while breaking trail up the north ridge of McGill shoulder. The storm slabs seemed to be failing on a grappul layer.
Overall great ski quality with dry snow above 1600m and decent snow below that. The exit out the canyon is in good shape.

Location: 51.26030000 -117.66867000