Birkenhead

Spent Sat & Sun in the Semaphore lakes area. All melt no freeze. Skis on from the summer trailhead, but snow won't last long and skiing back down required lots of creativity! At the lakes there's about 1m of snow, the Train glacier has good coverage and we probed to 3.2m without hitting ice. Snow was heavy and slushy, and we triggered small wet slabs on covex terrain. Best turns were found from 2000-1700 m. Grizzly seen in the meadow by the road by other skiers on Saturday. Hurley is in good shape. Enjoy the snow while it lasts!

We knew the wind slab would be reactive but was not expecting a remote trigger of this size. Elevation was about 2100M on a west aspect.

Great day out. Surprisingly no signs of instability. No signs of natural avalanche activity. 15cm of new snow sitting on slight wind/melt freeze crust. More prominent mfc about 60cm deep. 2 HS at 1700m. The sun had heat to it when not obscured by clouds. -5 degrees C.

Skied up toward Face Mtn with good visibility. There was 3-5 cm of new snow from the previous day. You could see evidence of wind effect on all exposed ridgelines and humps well into treeline, but the snow still skied and rode really well. Although we didn't see evidence of any new avalanche activity, we stayed away from any steep, thin snowpack rocky areas where triggering deeper buried weak layers may be more likely.

Encountered recent slab avalanches at crux of sled approach to Face area. Start zone in steep unsupported rocky terrain w/visible ice. Crown to 1-2m, estimated size 2. Smaller sympathetic releases on surrounding convexities. Approx 1500-1600m start zone. Turned around and went elsewhere.

Conditions have stabilized remarkably since the widespread cycle on or about Jan 13th. About 50 cm of storm snow now overlies this layer and natural avalanches have not been observed for about a week. A fracture line profile at 1775 m close to treeline on a NE aspect showed a CTM 18 RP down 45 cm on Surface hoar while the early jan layer down 51 cm showed no results. This was in an area that had widespread avalanches 11 days ago

Numerous size 2 to 2.5 on North facing aspects 1700 to 1900 m 40-60CM crowns running on December 26 layer. Remotely triggered by snow cat and ski cutting on 20 to 25° slopes

Stayed at phelix for April 1-3, riding cabin hill and perigrine. Snowpack tests on the Friday and Saturday showed no signs of instability. ~15 cm of new snow overnight on Sunday and continuing to snow while leaving. Did a lap of cabin hill Sunday morning and witnessed shooting cracks while skinning up, triggered two size 1 storm slabs on the way down, the new snow sliding on the hard crust below

Two loud whumpfing sounds heard (and felt) while skinning between 1900-1940m on low angle sparsely treed terrain (as shown in photo)

We had no results from the pit we dug. Went down 150cm to the early Dec. crust facet combo and performed multiple compression tests. No failures. I had to use the shovel to pry to get anything to pop. 35 degree west facing slope, 1825m. HS 335cm. On Saturday the new snow was quite reactive, however all slides were size 1. All the small slides from Saturday were in areas where you'd expect surface hoar. No instabilities noted on Sunday. Some new surface hoar is growing, but the height so far is minimal. Great skiing today! Skied slopes up to 35 degrees. Sorry about the delayed report. Had login issues on my phone.

HS 270 just below a small ridge NE facing. Dug down 1.5 m Did a colum test had a CTM15 58cm. Facets above the rain freeze crust of November lots of evidence of wide spread avy cycle from a few days ago.

Crusty in the valley bottom. Up at 2200m there was ~40cm wind pressed snow overlying a thick (3cm) rain crust. Pretty reactive to skier weight in steeper terrain. Lots of size 2-3 slides out of the steeper terrain from mid-storm.

The conditions exceeded our expectations. They were so good that we did another lap. Visibility in the morning was poor so we stayed away from steep slopes near ridge line due to evidence of wind slabs.

Riding conditions were surprisingly good today at upper elevations. Alpine and upper treeline features are wind affected, but actually riding pretty well. The snow underneath our machines felt more "wind sifted" than slabby. We started pushing out a bit in the afternoon by making sled cuts and high marks on small previously wind loaded test slopes which did not produce any avalanches or cracking. We stepped up to medium-sized lee slopes and did not get any results there either. In the portion of the Hurley that we explored it feels like the wind slab problem is specifically found on steep lee slopes in the alpine near ridge crest. The sensitivity to triggering seems to be diminishing. Near the end of the day we came across a fresh cornice failure that ran today. It did not trigger a slab on the wind loaded feature it impacted, but we would not have wanted to be underneath the cornice when it failed. Conditions are expected to change a bit tonight, we'll probably be looking for wind sheltered treed terrain tomorrow.

VERY windy at ridgetop/treeline. Below TL the snow was well consolidated with nice powder. At and above TL there was extensive wind slab and ongoing whoomphing. We turned around quick.

Another great day on the Hurley; excellent riding conditions were found. Our inspections of the deep persistent slab problem took us to Lone Goat today. We dug in the alpine around 2200 m on a northeast aspect and found the layer of concern down about 125 cm with a snowpack depth of 185 cm (being pointed at in the one photo). In general, it seems that the layer is typically in the lower 1/2 to 3/4 of the snowpack. There were rounded facets around a 1 cm thick crust but a deep tap test produced no result. Overall, the profile was confidence-inspiring for that particular area. Our suspicion is that at least where we were, it would require a major storm to reactive this layer, and perhaps even that wouldn't do it. Otherwise, we observed evidence of very large avalanches in almost all paths from the wet storm last week, many taking down trees (see photo). There was evidence of more recent wind slabs and cornice failures but from at least a few days ago. From our observations, it appears that all the recent snow is bonding well.

Snow was great up high, but unstable conditions. Skied at and below tree line and stayed off of steep slopes, although still Triggered 2 size 1 avalanches on small 30degree west facing slopes at 1750m and 1650m. Approximately 35cm deep wind slab sitting on recent crust. Saw large cracks on nearby convex slopes (caused naturally). Wet, heavy and crusty snow below 1600m.

Did an extended column test near site of Dec 23rd avalanche. Top powder failed but did not propagate relatively easily, next failure was during hard taps about 100cm down. See video for full test. https://photos.app.goo.gl/DFoyRK7zTtCMp2UZ8

Dug a test profile on a small, slightly wind-loaded feature at treeline. Our goal was to test for the reactivity of the Nov. 29th facet layer. Here are our results: -CTE5 SP down 20cms on wind-affected snow/storm snow interface -CTM15 SP down 32cms on MFcr -CTM18 SP down 90cms on Nov. 29th FC/MFcr** **Layer of greatest concern. Many groups dug on similar aspects at a similar elevation across the same basin and found similar results. The Nov. 29th facet crust combo is touchy and buried between 80-90cms, with a 1F+ hard slab sitting atop of this layer.

Skied the Y couloir, good snow throughout with little debris. Day was sunny with scattered clouds, light wind, and trace (<1cm/hr) scattered snow precipitation. Observed a few size 1 debris on N to NW aspects at approx. 1800m elevation, likely from the last storm cycle. Sluffing on E to W solar aspects.

Great day in the mountains with unlimited visibility and excellent traction. In north facing alpine features the snowpack has remained relatively cold above 1800 m. The temperature stayed just below 0 C in the north facing bowl we explored today. The recent storm snow has been formed into thin wind slabs 10 to 15 cm deep that are not particularly well bonded to an old melt freeze crust. See this Shovel Tilt Test result here https://youtu.be/DTBHQeNPlso We saw a few small natural avalanches to size 1 that looked less than 24 hours old. While they were not sensitive to rider triggering in the terrain we were in, they may be just a bit more sensitive immediately lee of ridgecrest. (photo 2) South and West facing features are predictably producing loose wet avalanches to size 1.5 (photo 3) and it certainly feels like spring! The Hurley Pass road is in pretty good shape from the main parking lot, but the dirt patches feel like they're getting bigger by the hour, when we got back to the truck this afternoon it was +18 C.

Great day in the mountains with unlimited visibility and excellent traction. In north facing alpine features the snowpack has remained relatively cold above 1800 m. The temperature stayed just below 0 C in the north facing bowl we explored today. The recent storm snow has been formed into thin wind slabs 10 to 15 cm deep that are not particularly well bonded to an old melt freeze crust. See this Shovel Tilt Test result here https://youtu.be/DTBHQeNPlso We saw a few small natural avalanches to size 1 that looked less than 24 hours old. While they were not sensitive to rider triggering in the terrain we were in, they may be just a bit more sensitive immediately lee of ridgecrest. (photo 2) South and West facing features are predictably producing loose wet avalanches to size 1.5 (photo 3) and it certainly feels like spring! The Hurley Pass road is in pretty good shape from the main parking lot, but the dirt patches feel like they're getting bigger by the hour, when we got back to the truck this afternoon it was +18 C.

Skier triggered size 0.5/1 windslab Propagated 15m wide down 40cm on an open north facing 40 degre slope Found stiff/ windslab and punchy slabs through out our run

Several Sz 1 Na observed on Sunday on all aspects in steep terrain.

On Nov. 11 there was about 50 cm of hard (pencil) base with some facets at the very bottom of the snowpack on N aspects, at about 1,800 m elev. South aspects had minimal coverage in this area. Between Nov 11-13, 50 to 70 cm of low density snow fell on top of this base making for deep powder conditions. We stuck to gentle slopes to enjoy mellow turns as there are still hazards under the snow, but on steeper aspects the new storm slab was cracking.

Skied around Waddington hut the past 3 days. Third skier triggered a size 1.5 wind slab on north aspect of cabin hill around 1900 m that propagate across the entire bowl. Nobody was injured. Crown was 30 cm to 50 cm deep and run 150 m long.We intentionally avoid the bowl by skiing the left side on the ridge but the avalanche got triggered on a steep convex roll see picture. The avalanche pbly failed on the mid march rain crust. We also digged a pit the day before on a sw aspect with multiple rain and sun crust. We had 3 fractures with sp results. One failed 70 cm down. Tricky snowpack. Play safe

Little snow coverage low down. Had to walk with skis to about 850m. Snowed 10-12cm overnight at Tenquille Lake. Skied up to around 1950m on Fossil Pass, there was evidence of wind loading. About 10cm of new snow on breakable crust. Skied conservatively as I was solo, the main run down Fossil pass skied quite nicely, light powder and good stability.