Fast travel in Summit Creek

<p>We ski toured up Summit Creek today. A supportive crust with a few cm of new snow on top made for fast and efficient travel. Near the highway corridor the wind was moderate from the northeast until we gained shelter in the valley. Once more we managed the uncertainty surrounding the persistent slab with conservative route finding, avoiding large interconnected slopes and run out zones. At our test sites on both south facing and north facing slopes at 1250m, fractures were not observed during standard snow profile tests but generally we are finding decomposing buried surface hoar in the Summit Creek alpine area. Our most impressive observation was how cohesive and heavy the slab on top of the weak layer is and, despite the lack of recorded fractures in our investigations today, a gentle pry from a shovel releases this very dense slab which ranges from 50-100cm thick. The north wind in the alpine was cold this afternoon and we saw some drifting, but we don’t think there is much snow available for transport. </p>

Terrain Ridden

Alpine slopes, Mellow slopes, Open trees.

Terrain Avoided

Steep slopes.

Snow Conditions

Crusty.

Weather Conditions

Cloudy, Windy.