Porcupine Cabin, Jan 11-13

<p>Stayed at Porcupine cabin. Skiing was phenomenal the first two days. Temperatures started to warm up on Wednesday afternoon and snow became little heavier with minor pinwheeling on steep slopes. Wednesday night really threw a wrench in the skiing, starting as snow and turning into rain for most of the night. We woke up to heavily saturated snow at the cabin, yet decided to walk up little ways to see how far the snow line was…. Too far. We made it up to 1800m and the snow still had top 20-30 cm of moist snow with a thin crust starting to form at the top. Skiing on the last day resembled April spring shmooo. No avalanche activity or signs of instability observed (very poor visibility).</p>

Terrain Ridden

Dense trees, Steep slopes.

Terrain Avoided

Alpine slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

Rapid temperature rise to near zero degrees or wet surface snow.

Snow Conditions

Deep powder, Heavy, Wet.