The Pipes are Flowing!

It's really been snowing in the Pine Pass the last couple of days! With the Bijoux parking lot snowed in, we took the pipeline over from PK to get to BIjoux. There was great riding and lots to see along the right of way. Up to 70 cm of new snow has fallen since Sunday, and there are many signs of the instability it has brought with it. We saw signs of natural avalanche releases on many steeper slopes as well as shooting cracks and blocks falling out from above our tracks while side hilling. It snowed about 10 cm in the morning before it died down, and temperatures sank to -19 by the end of the day. We dug a profile and found that the storm slab is still quite soft despite being 70 cm deep. It sits on a thin crust that has been acting as both a weak layer and a bed surface to slide on. Under the crust the older snowpack appears to be well consolidated. There's still early season hazards like open creeks, stumps, willows and rocks that are easy to forget about with all the soft new snow. Admittedly, we got sidetracked with everything going on at lower elevations and ran out of daylight to get to treeline or alpine. We didn't get too much higher than the powerlines, but still found great riding everywhere we looked.