Guardsman

Yukon Field Team , Tuesday 16th April, 2024 6:20PM

Today we Skied the NW face of the Guardsman. The shoulder had quite a few ski tracks in from the previous days so we ventured past them to check out the NW face and dig a snow profile there. We dug at 1400 M and found 335 cm of snow. We observed a small layer of facets down 40cm that we suspect has been the failure plane for recent avalanches in the area. We were not able to produce any results on this layer in compression tests or extended column tests. This gave us confidence in the snowpack so we decided to carry on further up the NW face. We observed no other signs of instability throughout the day. There was a thin wind skin present in several places, but only 2-3cm thick. Riding quality was good with some variability in the surface conditions due to the thin wind skin.