Haines Pass March 4-5

<p>Spend the weekend at Stellar Hut and took a good look at Haines Pass all the way to Rainy Hollow and also north of the pass. Generally the area is wind hammered with hard wind slab and even some melt freeze crust at the surface, not very good skiing. We took the sleds out and found some pockets of better snow in remote valleys away from the highway but generally pretty small. Took one quick run in rainy hollow to find slightly better conditions but still pretty bad. Snow sits on top of a melt freeze-crust in a variety of surface, windslab, dry powder, sun affected snow, etc. We saw lots of evident of some slab avalanche, mainly north of the pass. Almost every gully on the east side of the highway along the Tatshenshini River had slid (north aspect of the gullies). Also trigger a small windslab in rainy hollow, although it didn't slid but only cracked. Likely sitting on a facetted melt freeze crust from the warm-up 2 weeks ago. Based on the poor ski conditions and overall stability, i wouldn't risk going on any steep slopes that have windslab on it at this time. The good snow will come back:)</p>

Terrain Ridden

Alpine slopes, Mellow slopes, Open trees.

Terrain Avoided

Convex slopes, Steep slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.

Snow Conditions

Crusty, Wind affected.

Weather Conditions

Cold, Windy, Sunny.