Aquatic Figure Skating is CANCELLED!

Today in the Crowsnest Pass we found winter again. There was 20 cm of new snow at the staging area, and the amount just kept growing as we gained elevation up to a total of 70 cm at the entrance to Window Mountain Bowl. It was snowing all morning, making it hard to observe any recent avalanche activity. There was a little bit of clearing in the afternoon however, giving us a brief glimpse at a few wind-scoured ridges in the alpine. When we dug our pit, we found most of the snowpack was comprised of the new soft snow. The soft snow seemed to have insulated the lower snowpack because the bottom layers were all moist to ground, there was not a bridging crust like we had initially assumed. If there had been any crusts down low in the snowpack, they have all either melted out with warm temperatures and rainfall, or broken down. Our only test result was a shear within the storm snow, confirming that staying out avalanche terrain today was the right move. At 13:00 we were at 1850 m. It was - 1.9, wind was moderate from the SW (we could see it was strong at ridgetop), and it was lightly snowing. Things are changing quickly out here and we are definitely waiting a few more days to see how this storm snow settles and bonds to the lower snowpack.