Marriot Basin Conditions - Dec 17-20

Mountain Conditions Report

<p>Myself and a small group spent 4 days camped in Marriot Basin. </p> <p>Weather: Stormy conditions persisted throughout the trip with incremental new snow (5-10cm at a time) and we received approximately a cumulative 30cm of new snow. </p> <p>Winds in the basin ranged from NW to SW and were gusty. A few days had pronounced winds and lots of wind transport was apparent.</p> <p>Temperatures ranged from about -2 to -4 during the daytime with warming to near 0 deg Friday.</p> <p>Avalanche conditions: We skied a range of aspects, elevation and angles but mostly sticking to conservative terrain and stepping out a bit towards the end of the trip. We did only slightly touched upon venturing into the alpine. Angles skied never surpassed 35-40 degrees. Ski penetration into the snow ranged from 30-50cm in areas not wind affected and closer to 10-15cm in areas with wind redistribution.</p> <p>We observed no natural avalanches during the duration of our stay nor did we ever see any signs of instability (shooting cracks, whumphing, etc.).</p> <p>The December 9th crust was evident on steep south up as a suncrust to near alpine or as a pronounced temperature crust below 1650m.</p> <p>A test profile Saturday on a west-southwest aspect treeline feature with a snowpack depth of 140cm and some cross loading provided no significant compression test results. Soft slab formation 20-30cm deep had 4F-1F resistance near the surface and overlay 4F snow. The suncrust was apparent with no evidence of faceting down 55cm with 1F resistance snow above.</p> <p>Overall great skiing conditions with few evident concerns other than wind transport and potential windslab in specific lee treeline/alpine features. We were rating the hazard for our little area at Low (BTL)/ Moderate (TL)/ Considerable (TL) based on our observations.</p>