Chickadee Valley

We skied into chickadee valley to go take a look around and see if we could find some stable snow, as other reports had us thinking of wind slabs and persistent slabs. Travel up the valley was good, no more than a could cm’s of new snow. We got to the end of the valley and did a quick pit as we ascended the moraines and found a 5-10cm wind crust, then a well consolidated mid pack. We had no reaction to our CT test, and decided to ski the fan of a couloir on lookers left of the valley. A group ahead of us ascended higher into the couloir and reported large shooting cracks. We found relatively soft snow on top of a supportive base, with wind effect in some areas. We then skied across the valley in one of the avy paths in some open trees and found similar snow. Good day out!

We did a CT test on the largest moraine at the end of chickadee valley as we left tree line into the alpine. The area did have a lot of cross loading so different tests may result in different results. We found a wind crust about 5-10cm deep, and then a well consolidated mid pack that was not reactive to our CT test.