Bow-Yoho Traverse

<p>Our party of 4 completed the Bow-Yoho Traverse from 01/22 to 01/25. This is a quick summary of our observations. 01/22 Approach to Bow Hut. Fast travel, no obs. 01/23 Limited obs due to poor visibility on the icefield. Overcast all day with Mod SW winds. Windsl and soft sastrugi forming near ridge crests. We probed 230cm at the toe of the glacier in the morning. 01/24 Poor coverage below the Guy hut made for challenging skiing to access the Des Poilus glacier. Continued poor vis further complicated travel. Dug a hasty pit at 2400m below Isolated Col, N aspect. We were able to isolate both the Mid-December and early January SH layers in a compression test. CTM 14 @ 49 down, sudden collapse on SH to 4mm, CTH 21 @ 77 down, resistant planar on SH to 4mm. The upper 49cm was unconsolidated recent HST with minimal slab properties. Good skiing down to Stanley Mitchell Hut from the Col. We did experience a whumpf BTL near the elevation of the hut. 01/25 A regular day that turned into a bit of an epic. We planned to ski out from Stanley Mitchell via the Iceline. We were surprised to find 15cm of new HST in the morning, with continued snow through the morning, heavy at times (to S3). This made for deep trail breaking with 40cm ski pen. Winds began increasing around 1100 to Mod from the NW forming HST slabs. At this time we began to notice small Na avalanches to sz 1 releasing on convex rolls and steep moraine features, and chose to descend to a bench BTL where we could travel in more sheltered terrain. We decided we would exit via a creek drainage visible on google earth. As one of our party members made his way into the creek he remote triggered an avalanche in a start zone on a moraine feature over 500m upslope. This avalanche propagated the 300m start zone, had an estimated depth of 90cm and ran 500m stopping at the bottom of the track but did not reach the runout. We estimated this avalanche to be sz 3. This event also triggered several smaller avalanches to sz 2, 90cm deep, including on the creek sidewall. No skier involvement. We descended from here and found ourselves in steep treed terrain, forcing us to rappel at one point. We were then able to make our way to the Takkakaw Falls road and ski out the rest of the way to our parked vehicle. On our way out we noticed numerous Na events to sz 3, most starting above TL and running to top of runouts. An exciting end to what was really a great trip!</p>