Goat

We ventured into the valhallas today, determined to find dry snow. At low elevations the snow was still wet and soggy, and today's continued light rain did not help. Observed several loose wet on to the forestry road from the last few days, out of steep and rocky features. At higher elevations lots of small loose wet and rollerballing was seen from steep terrain. The surface crust is 2-3cm thick at 1700m and disappears around 1900m, becomes heavy pow but still good skiing!! We saw several natural storm slabs, likely from yesterday, between 2200-1700m. Several avalanche paths had crowns mid path and we couldn't see much of the start zones due to poor visibility. We dug at 1900m on an East aspect: a non propagating result was seen below the storm snow (down 30cm) and a propagating result was seen on what we think is the Feb 15 crust, down 55. We dug again at 2150 on a north east, and got non propagating results at the same depths. This kept our terrain choices a little conservative, we skied mainly open mellow trees and ventured into a few steeper features and more open slopes one at a time, with no cracking or results as we skied.

During our ride we did take a compression test and it did not have a failure the rain crust layer. Seemed to be dormant at 6550 feet in elevation. Two layers can be seen in the photo. No cracking or drums or whomping sound were heard

Today we packed our skis on the sleds, sleds on the truck, and the truck on a boat and sailed across to the quiet side. We spent the day switching between sunny and low light lenses as the clouds drifted in and out. Ontop of a ridge above a lake, (when we could see) we could see across the valley cloud to surrounding peaks and no signs of slab avalanches for miles around! There was some minor size 1 loose dry out of steep rocky alpine terrain. Had some nice powersluffing in the steep little shots we skied around treeline too. Widespread surface hoar covered the snow up to at least 2200 m (as high as we went) and ranged in size from 2 mm on south aspects to 5 mm on north. Around 30 cm of recent low density storm snow with no slab property made for some pretty fun turns. The recent snow sat ontop of a super thin humidity crust. The early-mid December surface hoar and crust were down 90 cm and 95 cm respectively. The surface hoar crystals were rounding, as were the grains above and below the crust. These layers did not produce results in a compression test but the surface hoar gave a moderate resistant planar result in a deep tap test. We also got a hard sudden planar CT result on a layer of decomposing stellar crystals down 65 cm.

Found good snow on Northern aspects. Southern aspects were windblown and/or sunbaked. Avoided Eastern (wind-loaded) aspects due to recent avalanche activity.

We skied north facing terrain in the Hanling Lakes area between 2200m & 1850m on North facing glades, open bowls, pillows and couloirs. Skiing steep unsupported and aggressive terrain to 40 degrees only producing manageable sloughing to size 1 in the top 15cm of snowpack. Minor cracking in lee of light southerly winds observed near ridge top. Up to 7cm of new snow throughout the day. Test profile at 1950m on north facing glade at 1950m producing moderate to hard resistant shears down 40cm on small decomposing crystals to 2mm. No other results in the top 110cm of snowpack. Height of snow in this location was 275cm.

Trip to Meadow Mountain Cabin . Friday Dec 28 had stable conditions and no sign of recent Avalanche. Terrain is heavily used by snowmobiles and Selkirk cat skiing. We skied steep slopes, chutes, open trees, mellow slopes and high marked on a sled. No whomphing or cracking. Friday night into Saturday Dec 29 morning we recieved forecast storm and 20cm fresh snow. The winds picked up from the west as forecasted at 9am and were moderate with gusts. On the first run out a ski cut produced a wind slab avalanche on an east acing slope which was wind loaded producing small size one avalanche and slid about 100 feet on a slope around 30°. There was other evidence of wind loading and fractures in the snow from the storm. Probed snowpack depth of 215cm. No snow pit dug, we left after triggering the slab avalanche as we were on the way out that day. Tree skiing on conservative terrain in the right aspect would have been safe, or in low consequence low slope terrain. We avoided convexities and terrain traps on travel.

There had been one sledder highmark across the slope, then a second sledder highmarked to about 20 feet below the crown and got stuck with his sled. A third sledder then rode past the stuck sledder to just about to where the crown was and turned around and went back down. The first sledder then started another climb but only made it about half way up the slope then turned around and was making his way back down the slope to the 3rd sledder who was watching from the bottom when the slide started with the one sledder still stuck 20 feet below the crown. The sledder who was stuck with the red buried sled in the pictures, rode the whole avalanche down trying to climb onto his sled which was floating mostly ontop like an island and was only partially buried up to his chest under his sled when the slide stoped. The sledder who was still making his way down when the slide started never realized the slide started and was struck in the back by the slide and his sled was buried to its handlebars in the picture and he was buried about 2 feet deep when the slide stopped. The third and only other sledder in the bowl who was at the bottom when it went off manage to ride his sled out of the slide path in time before it got to him. The partially buried subject managed to dig himself out from under his sled just as the sledder who outran the slide came back up to assist in the search. The one sledder who was partially buried and the one who outran the slide then managed to locate the 3rd sledder by beacon search and then dug him out from about 2 feet deep in approximately 1.5 to 2 minutes from the slide stopping. By that time more sledders that watched the whole thing from the ridge above the crown arrived to make sure everyone was okay and that all groups were accounted for. In the end both subjects who were caught in the avalanche were okay and rode out on their sleds.

Mild temperature inversion today, -4 valley btm -1 at ridge top. 100cm of snow at upper Tree line (2000m) Surface hore standing on the surface size 2-4 mm at Tree line, 5-15mm below Tree line, especially where the valley fog has been hanging around 1700m. Variable thickness sun crust on west and south aspects. Snow pack has settled well and carried skies with ski penetration 5cm or less. Oct? Crust sits down 40cm. This will change substantially with the forecasted weather coming in tonight.