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East Coast
A quick check into above tree line, via a bump from the Lightning Express. Thanks Marble! A tour around the Doppler gets good indication to where the winds been blowing, and where the snow is deposited. We found loading on East-South facing slopes, with wind slab formation from the steady winds of late. Not a lot of snow on top of a bulletproof crust, down anywhere from 20-50 CM on these E-S facing slopes around the Doppler weather station. Our test produced no significant results, but we did note a thin week layer on top of the crust.
Not much to report. Supportive crust with up to 10cm powder in protected features. Good fast conditions for the mellow terrain.
Arguably too icy for enjoyable skiing. Crampons required for bootpacking. Upper 20cm refrozen since the rain. Lower snowpack still has some moisture. Thin, isolated, and reactive windslab in immediate lee features. Snowpack seemed to be locked down real tight otherwise. The current icy surface will likely provide an excellent sliding surface for any new snow.
A rain crust throughout the high country of the Lewis Hills, made for tricky travel, and less than desirable conditions. There was a recent avalanche cycle, most likely from the snow, followed by the rains of Monday night. Size 1 to 3 observed, N-E facing slopes.
Late afternoon snowshoe. Snowing 1cm per hr. 5cm of fresh with a light breakable crust underfoot. ICT Resulted failure 2nd from elbow 20 cm down on another 5cm light crust. Snow pack had a fair bit of moisture from recent warm up in past 48hrs. Snow pack was fairly well bonded Good riding down.
Light rain and strong winds by noon. Moist surface snow kept wind transport down, all set up for a widespread rain crust once it gets cold. No new avalanches observed, and our test in the foothills produced no notable results. In one of our pits, NE facing, 250m, we did find a 2cm thick weak layer, sitting on top of the older November melt/freeze crust, 70cm down.
Blower pow, no wind. Great ski conditions in Market Run today. Both bowl and gully are well filled in. Lower valley has plenty of snow for access. First tour of the season for us and considering the avalanche forecast being at “considerable” we decided to head for Market Run and at least ski the gully if stability didn’t allow for the upper bowl. We dug a pit on a small slope with a similar aspect to the line in the upper bowl (east aspect), although considerably lower in elevation (150m). Compression test failed at tap 24 (4th tap from shoulder) with a resistant planer collapse. Failure layer was at a difference in snow density about 40cm down. Extended Column test collapsed at tap 21 (first tap from shoulder) but would not propagate with further taps. We continued testing, looking at the facet layer deeper down and had compression test failure at tap 27 (7th from shoulder) with a resistant planer collapse, and no result on the extended column test. Based on these results we decided to continue up to ski the upper bowl, assuming no major changes in snow cover. Once up, we made a plan to stick to the skiers left side, increasing the chance of a traversing “escape” to the left if anything popped. This slope is planer and well supported so the risk seemed well within tolerances. Skied the bowl one at a time and regrouped in a safe area, then continued down the rest of the gully. Fantastic conditions!!
A quick look at the Blowmidon Mountains. Out of there just after lunch, due to poor visibility and increasing winds. Travel through the open foothills was pretty poor, very little snow, and lots of rock. Lots of snow on the approach through the woods, 30-50 cm of low density throughout. Under the newer snow, in loaded lee features,, we found an extremely hard crust. Our tests produced results directly on this crust, with propagation in our Extended Column Tests. Didn’t get a good gauge on the Alpine, but there was definitely snow available for transport, and on the move, when we were on our way out.
A heavy hearted trip to the blow me downs today. We found variable depths of windslab (50-100cm) sitting on a bullet proof ice layer. A thin layer of facets sit on top of the crust. They seem to be bonding as we got hard results from our snow pack test. That said, we were not ready to trust them in steep, open, unsupported terrain.
Significant Snowpack on east facing slopes. Over 250+ cm’s observed. Not a fair representation for snowpack throughout the area. Low tide in many places. Roughly 80cms of dense wind loaded snow on top of a significant rain crust. Instability found in the first 30cms (likely the new snow). Stuck to mellow slopes and played it safe.
A touch of new snow being blown around on a thick supportive crust. The cold morning didn’t warm up as much as forecasted, and the crust only soften slightly later in the day, at tree line and in the alpine. Clear skies and no wind made for excellent travel, but low lands snowmobile travel will be at risk with the next warm spell.
Sunny with light clouds in the morning and more clouds in the afternoon. Lots of signs of wind scouring on all north and North East aspects. Rode Charlie's bottom, no sign of avalanche snow pack had a few layers of unstable snow. However would take lot to trigger an avalanche. Evidence of snowmobilers high marking in the bowl 1 hr before my arrival. Overall great day in the mountains. Best to get into the bowl early in the morning before the mountain sleds arrive and tear it up
Skied Market Run and found good snow, although somewhat wind stiffened. Joes Garage SE Face looks to be wind-scoured (2nd photo) Joes Garage North Couloir looks filled in but has a cornice at the top (3rd photo). No signs of instability, however there are some large cornices formed in some spots and evidence of a few recent failures.
Solid snow pack, top 7-10CM wind affected styrofoam snow.
Skied the SE aspect of Joes Garage Bowl again today. Excellent snow on the pitch but other aspects fairly wind affected from northeasterly winds. One observation of note was fresh debris from a cornice triggered avalanche on a NE slope that was noticed on the way in (see second photo).
Went for a look at the Blow Me Downs and only made it about 1km before turning around due to lack of snow. Approx. 10cm of light snow is all we found and it didn’t look any better up higher. Going to need a significant amount of snow before skiable.