Clearwater

We checked out the trails at Raft Mountain South and had the place to ourselves. Excellent grooming still. We did not observe any avalanche activity. Snow was heavily sun affected and solar aspects had a breakable crust into the alpine.

recent snow and wind loading at treeline was reactive to skier traffic and showed signs of propagation. Ski quality was excellent below treeline and wind sheltered areas

Up to 40 cm cold dry storm snow - overlies crust below 1850 m. Top 15-20 cm reactive as very soft slabs on Jan 31 interface, failing naturally on all steep unsupported terrain (road cut banks). Storm snow had more slab properties from slight wind effect in open areas above treeline.

Warm & mostly sunny day in the Trophies. Wet snow up to about 1700m, somewhat heavy powder (20cm ski pen) from there up. We skied some sub-alpine slopes that were pretty bony with some wind effect, but they skied pretty fast and we had fun, stayed on <30degrees slopes. We heard one woomph at 2100m and felt settling in open glades skinning up. Skiing down through the trees was fun as well and we skied steeper slopes without issues. Conditions are typical of what you normally see in November up there. Still lots of holes and early season hazards out Sastrugi seemed to indicate eastern wind at least where we were. Little wind and overall very pleasant conditions in the sub-alpine. The road was a sheet of ice at the turnoff, but gravel had been put down to the staging area when we came down. 130cm HS at 1700m and 170cm HS at 2100m.

Raining at the bottom but still snowing up top although it was quite warm. Still bottomless in some sheltered areas but a bit more of a crust layer about 30cm down in the more open exposed spots. We stayed in the trees between 1800 and 2000 m and had a fun blast considering the low base that varied between 90-105cm

25-40 cm faceting settled storm snow bonding well to Dec 27 crust (found up to 2000 m). Recent wind effect open areas expose to southerly flow. Probing indicates bottom 40-60 cm wear facetted snow. Visual obs of alpine generally poor coverage. Good conditions for the end of November !

Recon ski in some dense trees below treeline. North aspect. Light wind. 5 cm light snow through the day. No solar effect. Temp approx -8. No signs of much warming. Snow tests: 1850 m elevation, HS 160, ECTN, see pictures for profile, CT moderate down 150 cm on facets. One whumpf on flat area with 2 people standing close. No cracking. Pillows did not slide off. Great day out.

Very extensive wind affect in all but NE BTL Snow coverage is good, 250cm at 2000m and 160cm at 1600 35cm recent HST giving resistant hand shears on a low density stellar interface Temps were -3 to -5 No new avalanches

Ski quality was marginal. Mostly wind pressed, which still skied OK. Not as warm as expected, -3.0 at 2000m at 3 pm.

We dug a hasty pit at 1920m elevation and observed the Dec. 4 rain crust 90cm down with a thickness of 1cm. The snowpack was mainly consisted of well bonded facets that had a 1 finger result when testing for density. We observed that the crust was well bonded and fractured inconsistently below when put under leverage.

We found a wind? Crust about 10cm down. And At approximately 85cms down we found the deep persistent layer. The snow between the wind crust and the persistent layer seems well bonded. The deep persistent layer did not fail during the compression test. The upper crust settled at compression test 4 from the wrist. Pit test was done on a north north east aspect at 2070 meters.

Skinned up from 1500 ish metres. Snow pack was low and skiing (as well as walking) was fairly rugged until 1800 metres due to a breakable rain crust on the surface. Low snowpack meant lots of creeks, brush and blowdown. Above 1800 metres the crust was much less prominent and no longer noticeable above 1900 metres. Wind affect was obvious up high, but still some protected slopes to be found. -16 at 1250pm at 2100 metres, chillier then expected !

30+ cm of new snow sit on a thin wind skin (0.5 cm). In protected areas the wind skin is not present. This sits on another 30cm of Fist resistance new snow for a total HST of 60. Below this is a 10 cm 4 finger layer of facets size 1.5. The mid pack below is increasing resistance 1 finger to pencil. There is a weaker bond below the facet layer at 70cm. This is producing Sudden Planar Compression test results in the hard range and ECT N. Surface hoar was found at one BTL location at this depth/failure plane. Ski cuts on steep unsupported convex rolls produced only minor stuffing

Sorry just doing a report from what I saw another snowmobiler posted on Facebook in the area. He triggered an avalanche at night on East Raft Mountain but there is a big crack across the top with more slabs that could come down.

We spent a night near Caligata provincial park. Stability was good, but we witnessed a significant snow & wind event during the night. Snow totals were hard to estimate, but probably around 20cm with significant snow drifting. The general wind direction appeared to be from the south, but variable and strong gusts all night. HS at 2000m was 175cm. We skied moderate north easterly aspects on Saturday which were wind affected with some nice powder in the trees. Cornice drops on steep easterly aspects produced no results. A lot of the south & east facing slopes in the alpine had been absolutely hammered by the wind. On Sunday we skied the same moderate north easterly aspects and there was quite some wind effect, but the skiing was still very good. Boot pen was 40cm, ski pen 10 - 20cm. Cornice drops on north easterly aspect produced no results. On the ski out we skied steep forested slopes and did not witness any sluffing.

Observed a Class 2, NE aspet, wet, point release Ski'd NW facing low angle trees, outside of runout zones, was good!

A few natural releases evident in the area - crown depths looking about 30-50 cm deep (from afar).

Good conditions north of Raft Mountain. We stayed mostly within the trees and overall stability was fairly good. A shooting crack about 3' long was noticed on a switchback. There was also some occasional settling while skinning, but no big whumphs. The day was calm with little wind, socked in lower, clouds & sun higher up. Some wind effect was noted on the ridge, but nothing substantial. We dug a pit on the ridge and things seemed fairly stable; since it was the first day of the season we kept things pretty tame.The new snow felt fairly solid and we skied some 35 degrees slope below treeline with no issues. I cut a convexity and 2' wide slab came off, but stopped straight away. Snow coverage was good up high and still okay down below.

10cm of HN for a total of 25HST from the past days. HS is highly variable from 40cm to 118cm in the elevation bands of 1,700m and 2050m HS drops off significantly bellow 1,800m, especially in the trees. BTL snow where it is shallow is still quite weak, faceted below the recent HST until the lower crust. Lots of early season hazards. Low angle, open TL is where we found our best skiing Snow Pit HS 118cm on a 10deg open, sheltered N at 2050m Nov.23 SH dn 23cm just above the Nov.23 Cr. (Preserved cups and fragments 3-5mm) Both CT produced 12, 17 (RP) on the SH and 14, 20 SC 25cm dn underneath the Nov.23 Cr. The crust seemed to be breaking down as well. 70cm dn several laminated crusts existed. With the warmer temps the facets from the last cold snap are rounding out throughout the snowpack here

Compression test, sudden planer 8 taps. Extended column test propagated at same depth. 50cm. Consolidated wind slab on buried surface hoar.

Watch the alpine slopes, either totally scraped of snow or loaded up with some large slabs and cornice growth

THIS IS A TEST