West side of Skeena near Mount Catt

<p>The day featured a dramatic temp inversion. Valley bottom was cold and featured still air, snow basted trees, dry snow surface with well developed surface hoar varying from large needles to classic shaped crystals. The temp inversion line of demarkation was reached at about 900 meters elevation. From there to about 1300 meters the air was warm and low humidity. Above 1300 meters the air was at or below freezing again with raging, strong gusty winds from the west to southwest. We were almost blown off our feet nearing ridgetop. :) At end of day descending on primarily SW to W aspect terrain, the colder snow from ridgetop to about 1200 meters was smooth and creamy skiing with a dash of stratagucci ( ;) ) and thin windslab thrown in to spice it up. In the mid elevation warm air band, the afternoon homogenous cloud cover greenhoused the snow and it became heinously herky jerky and fatiguing to ski. Below 900 meters the snow remained cold and fun to ski...with a decomposing near surface sun/temp crust and about 15cms of soft, slarvy snow beneath, resting on a solid crust. Dug two pits near treeline at approx 1200 meters. One pit on wnw aspect another pit due south aspect, 50 meters apart. wnw aspect pit slightly wind loaded, due south pits subject to slight scouring. Due south aspect pit: 20 degree slope incline. HS 175cms. WNW aspect pit: 30 degree slope incline. HS 220cms. Snow surface moist. Air temp plus 2 degrees C. Wind light to moderate gusts from the west. Sky variable cloud/sun. South aspect pit results: 0-95 cms progressively denser snowpack from 1 finger for top 15cms to one finger plus to 35 cms then pencil to 75 cms then knife to 95cms where there was a 3cms thick rain crust. Pencil to knife density down to 140cms where there were multiple crusts down to snowpack base. Compression tests revealed two mid moderate resistant planar shears down 20 and 30cms. No result above or below the crust down 95cms. No deep tap test performed on the basal crusts. Results similar in wnw aspect pit aside from same snowpack features being relatively deeper and upper snowpack shears occurring at resultantly slightly deeper snow depths.</p>

Terrain Ridden

Alpine slopes, Mellow slopes, Dense trees, Convex slopes, Steep slopes, Sunny slopes, Open trees.

Avalanche Conditions

Rapid temperature rise to near zero degrees or wet surface snow.

Snow Conditions

Crusty, Heavy, Wet, Wind affected.

Weather Conditions

Cold, Stormy, Windy, Warm, Cloudy, Sunny.