Clemina on the Winter Solstice

<p>Riding up in Clemina today we found some amazing powder but really poor light. We were unable to see into much avalanche terrain due to the foggy weather. The poor visibility combined with the high avalanche hazard kept our terrain choices to mellow ground that was less than 25 degrees in steepness with no overhead hazard from avalanche terrain above us. We dug a pit at around 2000m on the way up to the Goat area and found some weak layers in the recent storm snow down 25, 45 and 60cm. We think these layers will bond pretty quickly given a few days but our main concern was a scary layer of surface hoar crystals down 90cm. This layer looked to be gaining strength slowly and didn't react very suddenly in our snowpack tests but we felt that given the right slope and trigger this layer has the potential to create very large dangerous avalanches almost a meter deep. </p>

Terrain Ridden

Mellow slopes.

Terrain Avoided

Convex slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.

Snow Conditions

Deep powder.

Weather Conditions

Stormy, Foggy.