Strachan Trees

As expected today in the Strachan trees, the snow was quite reactive. We noticed shooting cracks and whumpfing, with the sound occasionally coming from a few meters away, suggesting propagation. There was a size 1.5 avalanche in the Dadoir zone with wide propagation. It covered the usual skintrack between Hollyburn and Strachan. We didn't see any tracks going into or out of the area, so suspect that this was a natural avalanche. There was no new snow on the debris, so it likely triggered near the end of the storm. We triggered a small size 1 from the skin track, with a 30-35m run length. This one was remote triggered but from only about a meter away. It occurred at the top of a steeper section of the track, near a convexity. Later in the day, on our descent we triggered another small size 1 in the same zone, this one with a slightly shorter run length. We started at around 8:30am and it was cold and windy up high, with lots of wind-loading in exposed areas. However, the wind died down and the sun came out later in the morning, and within a few hours the snow was beginning to feel heavier. As warming occurred, we noticed bigger and deeper shooting cracks.