Glow, Blow, then Snow

<p>Is it worth it? You better believe it! After a long day of driving, we unloaded sleds, gear, fuel, and food from the truck and packed it up in the skimmer. We set off in the fading light to Kakwa Provincial Park arrive under the stars. We woke to a red sunrise; with the storm on its way, we rode out to Mount Ruth area to look at higher elevation terrain before we lost visibility. We saw heavily scoured ridge lines and a couple older wind slabs before the storm rolled in. It wasn't long until the strengthening winds had us retreating to lower, more sheltered areas at tree line or below. Over the next 2 days we received 30cm of snow with strong to extreme winds from the southwest. Storm and wind slabs in combination with poor visibility kept us out of the alpine, but we found excellent riding in both open and dense trees. Even hanging out in the trees there were signs of windslabs (shooting cracks) in many small openings and storm slabs (size 1 avalanche) in sheltered areas. We focused on good communications and keeping close tabs on each other while enjoying what the storm delivered. </p>

Terrain Ridden

Dense trees, Open trees, Steep slopes.

Terrain Avoided

Alpine slopes, Convex slopes, Steep slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

Slab avalanches today or yesterday.

30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.

Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.

Snow Conditions

Deep powder, Wind affected.

Weather Conditions

Stormy, Windy.