What a weekend

ngottlieb , Monday 6th March, 2023 10:20AM

Skied alpine terrain in the Shames area on both Saturday and Sunday. Found well-settled powder with low ski pen (5-10cm) on the up track in most places but excellent ski quality coming down. The snow tends to be less consolidated and deeper feeling below treeline. There is evidence of wind effect on the snow surface from the tail end of the storm last week in the alpine, but it has mostly softened out. Solar aspects are developing a thin sun crust at moderate and lower elevations though it sounds from other groups like even South at high elevations may still be hanging in there with the cooler temps (1400+), and temps have been cool enough that shaded areas on otherwise solar runs are still holding powder. High quality skiing as low as 300m as long as the sun hasn't hit it. Little evidence of recent instability anywhere except for some small loose wet stuff on south facing extreme terrain at low elevations. Some tracks around the valley indicated some big lines got skied with no issues.