Early season at tunnel

<p>2 days spent up at Tunnel Creek playing it safe. We avoided North and West faces like the plague, plus anything else that looked remotely wind loaded, and steered pretty clear of anything steeper than 30 degrees. Dug a variety of hand pits and pits to help see where the snow pack was carrying the most energy and where we should save for another day. See photo for locations: Pit 1: East facing ridge top 1950m. Obvious weak layer shown in second photo ~60cm down. Total HS was 150cm. Column survived the compression test but failed with an extra hammer blow, sudden planar at that weak layer . Seemed stubborn to release but keen to propagate. Extended column confirmed this failing at same number of hits (31) on the hammer blow… failed all the way across the column . Pit 2: SE face 1900 m open trees in lee of the previous winds and a shaded spot. Prompted by a hasty that nearly jumped out the hole when it was separated. Compression test failed with energy at 11 hits (first from elbow) and jumped off the column. Failure plane was 50cm down here but a much thicker layer of facet-looking garbage, presumably from November dry spell. Pit 3: South aspect, 1850m. Sheltered from wind but sun exposed. Weak layer from November much lower down here at ~90cm. Compression test failed at 22 at a different suspect layer 50cm down, seemed like a sun crust. Cleared it off and kept hitting, November layer failed at 26 hits. Again, sudden planar, but less energy than pit 2. We stuck to ~30 degree (or less) slopes with low consequence and had some classy turns between the tight trees. The 3-5cm of new snow from last night did not bond well to anywhere that had a crust from the warmth on Sunday.</p>

Terrain Ridden

Dense trees, Mellow slopes.

Terrain Avoided

Alpine slopes, Convex slopes, Open trees, Steep slopes.

Snow Conditions

Crusty, Powder.

Weather Conditions

Cloudy.