Condition Report - Duffey Lake Road Dec 13-16

Mountain Conditions Report

<p>Spent 4 days with a group on the Duffey Lake Road camped by Rohr Lake. </p> <p>Early season conditions very much exist still and many features are unskiable. Low logging roads are easy travel but below 1700m bootpacking in the forests is still required. 1700-1900m involves travel with skis but can be challenging with surface roughness. There is 60-80cm of snow at these elevations.</p> <p>Above 1900m, up to 2 meters exist in areas that are wind loaded and but generally, the snowpack is shallow (less than 1 meter) and include prominent facetted layers buried in December and November. </p> <p>Snow conditions are generally good but rocks are lurking under the soft snow nearly everywhere. Some surface hoar growth was observed throughout the weekend.</p> <p>Test profiles on a north aspect at treeline provided repeatable hard to moderate compression test results down 60cm (out of a total 100cm of snow) on pronounced 2-3mm facets. In an extended column test, the layer failed to propagate. </p> <p>No avalanches were observed despite good visibility. No signs of instability while travelling (wumphing or shooting cracks). One cornice failure size 1.5 (no slab avalanche).</p> <p>Overall, things are skiable if you can get to the right terrain but the approaches are challenging making 1-2 day trips unappealing. The current snowpack can be described as 'continental' and I expect as we get more load, we will be dealing with a dangerous and long-lasting persistent weak layer problem. Currently, there seems to be too much terrain roughness and not enough load for avalanches.</p> <p>In the coming weeks, be careful out there. Once the snow arrives, things will wake up and become exceedingly alarming.</p>