South Purcells

cordillera.tech , Sunday 5th March, 2023 8:10PM

Skied a few quality powder runs on a north aspect between 1700 and 2200 m. The snowpack in this area was between 190 and 240 cm deep with fairly uniform coverage and minimal wind effect and few shallow areas. A test profile at 2100 m showed a generally strong snowpack. The upper pack consisted of settling storm snow, transitioning from F at the surface to 1F down about 50 cm. The mid pack is well bonded and strong, mostly P hardness. Two surface hoar layers were identifiable down approximately 60 cm and 90 cm. There is a layer of 1F facets 30 cm thick near the base of the snowpack, sitting on about 20 cm of P hardness snow, possibly an early season crust. Testing of the upper 100 cm showed a couple progressive compression results in the top 30 cm, and hard/very hard planar shears on both surface hoar layers. These benign results are representative of a protected deeper snow area, I’m sure it would be a very different story on other aspects with more variable and shallow snow cover.