Sunny Side, Tunnel Creek

It was lightly raining at the trailhead at 10:00am so the trail was slushy and crusty. It didn’t take long to get past the rain into light snow and better trail conditions. We dug a pit and did an isolated column test near the top of Sunny Side, in a safe but deep, wind loaded loaded south aspect. The snow was 245cm deep. We could feel the very stratified nature of the snowpack including several distinct crusts, and of course, the layer of sugary facets at ground level. Surprisingly, our column sustained all 30 taps with no reaction. We pried the column off the wall. It came off in one full piece, right to the bottom facet layer. When it hit the ground the column also broke at the Christmas crust which was buried 40cm down.