Memekay the other way was just OK.

AvCan Vancouver Island , Thursday 29th February, 2024 5:10PM

We tried an alternate route into Memekay today via the Memekay East Main. Access was super straightforward on sleds (like many places right now) but a nasty crust topped the new snow until about 900 m. This gave way to deep, heavy powder, 50 cm of it in areas of uniform coverage and much more in wind-exposed areas where wind loading is ongoing. On our road ride we saw small surface instabilities on steep cutbanks where rain/warm temperatures coaxed moist/wet snow into action. Closer to ridgetop, we noticed several crown fractures of recent avalanches that ran size 1 - 2, seemingly confined to the upper 30 cm or so of storm snow. Our test profile results were encouraging. It took moderate loading to see failures in storm snow down 30 cm that were resistant, taking several taps to complete the failure, and we had no significant results on our crust. Our early February facet/crust combo was absent. This was only at 1100 m though! We have seen the combo at higher elevations on the North Island and it did produce more concerning results there. We're still quite leery of shaded aspects at high elevation where instability is likely greater... if you can get there! DEEP trailbreaking days continue!