Hammerin' Cameron

AvCan Vancouver Island , Tuesday 14th March, 2023 4:20PM

After a successful day of dodging wind slabs yesterday, we thought we'd go track some down today to get a better read on the problem. Wind-exposed Mt Cameron was a great spot for it. We found lighly wind loaded north aspects at 1300 m holding about 25 cm of storm snow that would produce cracks and wind slab chunks as we skinned along the top edges of steep slopes, but breaking away much more easily when one of us would cut away the toe support of the slab. All in all quite stubborn reactivity. (Maybe touchier with a bit more elevation?) Our snowpack tests yielded easy (wrist taps) but again quite resistant shears at the storm interface, with a moderate propensity for fractures to propagate across our extended test column. Ski cutting results were consistent with our tests, evidence of a slab for sure, but stubborn to skier trigger and not propagating much. A walk around on more windward aspects seemed to confirm the lack of a more widespread storm slab.