South York - Crowsnest

We spent the day in South York creek where we found some pretty decent skiing. We toured up a south aspect where the upper snowpack 25cm was soft due to the recent cold temperatures facetting the snow and sheltered location. As we approached the ridge there was some wind affect that was hollow sounding. There were isolated pockets of wind slab up to 20 cm deep but we did not get any cracking as we walked across. We were still on the hunt for the late January persistant weak layer so poked around on a sheltered north facing slope and dug down to the previous surface and did not find any surface hoar. Similar to the south-facing slope the upper snowpack was soft snow. WE deceided to ski the steeper north-facing slope where we had good turns in 40cm of soft snow. This soft snow due to facetting may become an issue with the next snowfall or wind event but today it made for some pretty good turns.