Chamcain Pow

Saw 30 cm on the CHRL stations at Cain and knew we had to go investigate! We arrived to positively stunning snow conditions, with 30-40 cm of new snow doing a great job of hiding the crust. Recent northerly winds were obvious (northeasterly today) with light wind effect below treeline escalating to moderate, borderline heavy wind effect in the alpine with transport still ongoing through the day. Wind slabs up to 80 or so cm deep were the result, having formed in some odd spots thanks to the northerlies. Testing these slabs at all elevations gave quite stubborn, sluggish cracking but we did observe one size 1.5 skier/rider triggered slab at the bottom end of one of the East Bowl chutes. Seemed like midslope was actually a bit more likely to produce avalanches with so much snow being stripped from the alpine and landing lower down. It was cold! -15C. Should preserve this powder nicely but keep the potential for new wind slab formation going too. Winds look like they step up a bit tonight. :(