Register for an account and never miss a forecast again!
South Rockies
Up Allison Creek today, sledded in and then ski toured up a (somewhat) sheltered North facing ridge. With pretty decent visibility we had a good look around seeing no new avalanches despite yesterday’s warming, last night’s added snow load, and moderate to strong winds. We did however see some “signs of instability” in the immediate lee (sheltered side) of our ridge at Treeline: snow sounded a bit hollow, and was cracking between our two skin tracks, with that undercut snow moving only stubbornly. This indicated to us that higher in the Alpine, and in bigger open terrain at Treeline, we could expect to find windslabs and it would be likely that we could trigger them. We dug two hasty pits, one in an open glade at 2170 m with some wind affect, one in a sheltered spot 150m lower. No concerning test results in either area. Mid and Lower snowpack continues to consolidate. We figured about 15 cm of new snow fell at Treeline, which made for great sledding and skiing in sheltered areas. We probed a total depth of around 200 cm at Treeline. We saw the sun occasionally, but the snow stayed dry. Our high temperature was -5 at Treeline, while it got up to +1 atvthecstaging area at 1500 m. With the Moderate to Strong winds, despite the new snow, the Alpine is already looking much like before the storm, with windward aspects stripped to ground.