Poked the grizzly
christophelaberge94,
Thursday 26th December, 2024 11:00PM
Avalanche Canada
Poked the grizzly
Submitted by
christophelaberge94
Observations date
Fri, Dec 27, 2024, 12:05
Location
51.227482° N 117.457458° W
Reporting on
Snow conditions
Quick
Avalanche
Snowpack
Weather
Incident
Snow conditions
Riding quality was:
Amazing
Snow conditions were:
Deep powder
Hard
We rode:
Alpine slopes
Mellow slopes
Steep slopes
Sunny slopes
Information
The day was:
Cloudy
Sunny
Windy
Avalanche conditions
Slab avalanches today or yesterday.
Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.
Comments
Skinned up Teddy Bear trees, saw no signs of instability. Waited at treeline for the visibility to improve in the alpine before continuing towards Papa Bear.
Heard a solid whumpf near the summit. It's at this moment that we knew the grizzly was awake. Despite this fair warning we decided to investigate towards grizzly couloir, to get some feedback for the community.
With great visibility upon arriving at the top of the couloir we were able to confirm that Papa Bear was ready to shed the coat of storm snow from his den. We decide to get our shovels out and release the expected windslab with a Fridge size chunk of cornice. As expected, the start zone fractured 30cm deep over 30m wide and ran approximately 1000m.
We rode down the avy path down the couloir and enjoyed some amazing snow down the drainage.
Moral of the story, today was a good reminder that the wind events of the previous days created considerable problems for riders in the alpine.
Poke the bear, but be humble!
Happy holidays :)



Location: 51.31545975 -117.56098986