Teanaway River Drainage

A beautiful spring day in February! Southerly aspects warmed nicely in the sun, and I enjoyed perfect corn skiing. Venturing too far off due south aspects made for loud, chattery skiing on stout but edgeable crusts. Ski crampons were necessary for easier travel on these slick surfaces. One of the more notable observations was the lack of evidence of a natural avalanche cycle from last weekend and early this week. While I could find deeper debris piles with my probe, and one avalanche path still had a pile of recognizable debris, I expected to see more widespread crowns. It seems that the prolonged warming has hidden the evidence already, or maybe the Teanaway faired better than other areas in East Central? We may never know the full extent of the natural avalanche cycle or lack thereof.

Travel on the groomed trail was easygoing, and there were no creek blowouts or piles of avalanche debris to manage on the way in. Lower elevations have also held up quite well, and there was a noticeable, but not drastic, loss of coverage at these lower elevations. 

There were some more recent rollerballs, small wet loose avalanches, and cornice falls. Evidence of older avalanches was hard to come by after such a prolonged warm period. But I did probe around and find deep debris from a larger avalanche (D2.5?) in an avalanche runout from a path off of the ridge. But it had melted back so far it was tough to discern without probing. I also saw the toe of debris in another confined path that looked over 72 hours old.

I was pleasantly surprised to find supportable surfaces at all elevations today. At lower elevations (below 4000ft), I could find the occasional spot to sink deeply into the snow but found boot penetration averaged 5-10cm. Above 4000ft, the snow surface is supportable to both boots and skis. 

The surface crust ranged from 10-15cm thick and was pencil-hard with a knife-hard layer on the surface on more northerly aspects. On shady slopes, I found a fresh batch of widespread small surface hoar on the new crust. Above 5700ft, I found 3cm of recent snow that is faceting and mixed with surface hoar. 

I dug a full profile at 5600ft on a WNW aspect. 
HS 142

The snowpack was moist throughout and much stronger than before this warm, wet storm. The upper snowpack is a thick crust (K to P hardness) over pencil-hard, rounded grains. The Jan 8th crust is buried 50cm deep, and the Solstice Crust is down 77cm. There are strong rounded grains between these layers. While there is some weaker snow above and below both the Solstice Crust and the Jan 8th crust, these faceted grains are now well-rounded, moist, and gaining strength.