Tommy One Fun

We went to Tommy Creek anticipating powder and windslabs, and we found both. Southerly winds were blowing snow around at ridge top. It was -2ºC in the alpine and the surface snow was moist up to 2000m. These warm temps and winds have settled the upper snowpack into a slab over the less dense, new snow. We saw lots of shooting cracks in this slab as we travelled through wind loaded terrain, even on mellow slopes. This slab, roughly 30-50 cm thick, produced sudden test results in our snow profile on a northerly alpine slope at 2100 m. We also had results on surface hoar (3-5 mm) from February 20th buried 90cm deep. After a helmets off discussion, we decided to ride deep powder on mellow slopes well away from overhead hazards. It was another great day in the mountains around McBride!