Deep Creek

In hopes of an easier snow level start, we headed up the Duffey towards Steep Creek area. The recent storm snow had left about 15 cm of snow roadside, this continued to increase as we headed up the road. By the time we switched from snowmobile to skis at 1500 m, there was around 30 cm of new snow. Route finding can still be a little tricky through the forest with the low coverage, lots of hopping over logs and winding through the brush. Up to 1700 m the melt freeze crust from the recent warm weather is about 1 cm thick with moist to wet snow underneath, above 1700 m it becomes much thicker and more of a layer you can feel under your skis. We dug a pit at 2100 m and found 45 cm of storm snow which is sitting on a 15 cm crust. There were no significant results in our compression tests, and no results in our propagation test. We stayed out of the alpine and off the ridges where the wind effect was a little more evident, and found excellent skiing in the open trees.