Highwood Pass

The trail has certainly been broken, there's 25cm of fresh snow, and I got no results on the ct... What more could you possibly want? (Maybe enough snow to properly perform one?)

Tried to ski the N line on mt Rae (not rae glacier) but got skunked for a couple reasons. Mainly the line wasn’t filled in and wasn’t skiable but also the overnight re freeze wasn’t quite as cold as we would have liked however we didn’t get up higher than 2400m. Didn’t probe around as there wasn’t much snow so no info there. Highway 40 is clear up to elbow lake at least. The trail to the lake is still fairly snowy and we skinned the last half. Travel from the lake is ok it’s fairly snowy up there but the surface crust wasn’t quite enough to hold a person.

Observed recent debris runout of a size 1.5-2 avalanche off headwall into alpine bowl. Did not propagate a larger slab avalanche. It was very stormy (high winds and snowing) for 30mins today. Alpine NW aspects were wind stripped and SE aspects loaded where we skied. Fresh snow was 40cm deep in alpine decreasing to 20cm lower down.

New snow made for good powder skiing. Still grazed a few rocks just above treeline but otherwise there was a good base under the new snow. Skiied the mellow slopes treeline and below treeline (south-western aspects). Saw 3 other groups skiing this area. We stayed away from the alpine slopes of Little Arethusa as wind had left them barren. No instability noted on the aspects we skiied treeline and below. Was snowing heavily when we left so the Highwood Pass ski conditions should be improving but with increased avy risk. Three more ski days before the road closure.

Careful, take your time getting into your turns and be very cautions of rocks. I caught a pretty good one had a hard fall. Very unexpected thought I was taking it easy. Snow is thin and very unpredictable, changing from hard crust, with loose facets underneath, sun baked, and wind effected snow. Some observed loose avalanche across the valley on steep runouts but not enough snow or pitch in arethusa area that we observed. There are some turn to be had out there, just a reminder to take it slow this time of year.

It's skied out. Not much else I can say. The new snow didn't help

Above TL looking at pockets of 10-20 cm of powder with no base. Wind deposited lots of snow towards the SE. At TL and Below TL seeing a range between 20-30 cm of powder that has not been wind affected. No rocks were encountered but would not recommend going higher than 2300m as the consistency of snow depth deposited changes abruptly from 20cm to bare.

Bony walk up to Rae Glacier today, as expected. 10-50cm of snow on the glacier, well bonded to ice and itself, no stability concerns. The upper 200m skied OK but we hit ice on a few turns. Below the glacier coverage is thin. Skiing not recommended yet but reasonable with another 20-30cm. Alpine ice is starting to form.

Snowprofile from the Public Safety Team

Had a nice day skiing mellow slopes and meadows under Little Arethusa. Untracked areas had great skiing, while old tracks had crusted up and were covered by 5-10cm of powder. Skin track had good coverage and was good going up. Coming down it was easy to hit small rocks/roots under unsupported powder.

Resistant planar failure, on the interface between the storm slab and a crust below. Thick basal crust also present (75cm down) Also had a skier jump on a pit and cause a sudden failure, but with low energy and didn’t propagate or move downhill.

30-40cm of fresh, heavy, wet snow. Rain on lower elevations. Little to no wind in the morning changed to significantly more windy in the afternoon.

Base is not there yet. Still hit rock if you turn to hard in the wrong place. Filling in nicely though.

Early rise today as the temps were set to climb to near zero. We toured into Arethusa Cirque and found variable wind slab, wind loaded powder, and shallow areas on our accent. Lookers right of the Couloir was heavily wind loaded and was periodically tested by hand shear testing. It was found to be mildly reactive on crust ~15-20cm down. We opted to stick to the rocks for the safest route up when the test results became more pronounced. The decent started with a heavy ski cut at the top followed by a couple slower turns feeling out the slope, then the brakes came off and the run was truly enjoyed. We had the entire run complete by 10:30am. I think the full day of sun and warmth on the 22nd helped to consolidate the snowpack slightly. My riding partner and I spent the prior day feeling out the area and assessed the run within our level of comfort. I would highly recommend if you check this feature out giving the lookers right heavily wind loaded area some space. Enjoy.

I’m still trying to get better at writing these so bear with me. We skied the NW aspect Highwood Ridge fans and found some great skiing next to all of the previous tracks. Slight wind affected surface snow with crust in only a couple of turns. Stability on the slope felt great so we ventured higher. We skinned a fair way up the couloir in the picture twice. Once lower and once higher up. We found: overall stability to be good. At a varying depth 10-20cm down there was a layer that the untouched snow liked to slide on. I dug multiple hand pits and found that some chunks would easily slide, and some would not. I tried a simple compression test with my shovel blade on a hand pit and it would collapse around CTE 3 but wouldn’t slide unless I pushed it (40° slope, I measured). Sometimes it would be somewhat easy to slide the block, other times it would slide but crumble. Jumping and ski cutting did absolutely nothing, even on 40° slopes

I’m still trying to get better at writing these so bear with me. We skied the NW aspect Highwood Ridge fans and found some great skiing next to all of the previous tracks. Slight wind affected surface snow with crust in only a couple of turns. Stability on the slope felt great so we ventured higher. We skinned a fair way up the couloir in the picture twice. Once lower and once higher up. We found: overall stability to be good. At a varying depth 10-20cm down there was a layer that the untouched snow liked to slide on. I dug multiple hand pits and found that some chunks would easily slide, and some would not. I tried a simple compression test with my shovel blade on a hand pit and it would collapse around CTE 3 but wouldn’t slide unless I pushed it (40° slope, I measured). Sometimes it would be somewhat easy to slide the block, other times it would slide but crumble. Jumping and ski cutting did absolutely nothing, even on 40° slopes

Best snow of the season at treeline and below. Wind slabs were building on the SE face so we stayed out of the Alpine. A few size 1.5 to 2 loose avalanches from steep terrain off the eastface of Poccaterra mountain during the day and last night.

Strong winds produced variable wind affected surfaces above 2250m with a whumph and a number of shooting cracks observed on the skin up. Best skiing and visibility was in sheltered TL, with early season hazards still poking through.

28 cars at the parking for arethusa by 10:00 am, essentially everything had tracks and the alpine has been stripped of snow to have marginal to nil coverage. Trees ok but an absolute ton of people out. Wind increased dramatically by 1:00 PM

Shallow snow but decent ski quality. 10 cm soft powder with some wind affect. Great weather for an early season walk. Snow is deep enough to ski but lots of things poking through underneath.

Great day skiing at Highwood pass. 15cm HST sitting on old crusty snow. Did a couple hand shears on the way up and it seems to be bonding well, you can feel it when you ski. HS about 40-60

At the start of the day there was 10cm of powder sitting on 10cm of Styrofoam from the wind/warming early in the week. By lunch it had warmed up to 5 degrees C and the snow was sticky on the way up and down. I would recommend waiting for some new snow before skiing here. The alpine was heavily wind affected.

Riding was good with 10+cm fresh on supportive "crusts"

The area has received lots of traffic over the last few weeks. Lots of baiting skin tracks going all over. We did manage to find some short untracked slopes. The lower elevations are very rugged. We did notice lots of slab avalanches size 1 or less on all aspects. All previous to Saturday’s recent snow. Also lots of wind affected ridges and exposed terrain.

Skied into valley below Rae Glacier. Stopped below tree line. Terrain above wind scoured with powder deposited in lees. Fresh powder deposited on top of crust, in the trees.

Rae Glacier is surrounded by rocks. It was really windy in the area and many slopes were affected by the wind having a crusty layer. However, we were able to ski in the trees on the side of an avalanche path facing West, east of the canyon. The snow was powdery. Two feet thick. The snow in between the October and November crust was facetted. But still ending up having a good stability on the tapping test.

Windblasted conditions everywhere for the ascent. Despite it being out of the wind most of the day. Up track(s) is gnarly on the ridge with very little purchase in the hard conditions. West facing aspect rode alright with a crunchy 5-10 cm windslab with some pockets of powder. Snow becoming a little wet at treeline around 2. Cloudy skies all day with a few minutes of sunshine breaking through here and there, on top of the ridge we had moments of vis that were <300m

Super windy

Wind affected snow tree line and alpine. Thin melt freeze crust on solar aspects from yesterday’s sun and warmth. Up to 20cm of new windslab in alpine lees. In some places, this is overlying surface hoar formed on Thursday night and 5-10cm of unconsolidated low density snow from last storm. Ski quality was better on polar aspects with no sun crust.

Compared to Saturday the winds have really hammered the area on all aspects and in open areas below treeline. We found one west aspect that had ok wind-sifted snow on it. The wind storm resulted in a size 2 to ground and 1.5 slab avalanche from beneath Mt. Tyrwitt that could have been triggered by cornice falls(marked in red). Are snow pit at 2350m on a west aspect had HS 73cm, the October crust was present but not very reactive, and the new 10cm hard wind slab was bonding poorly.

It's October, it's Highwood Pass, everyone thinks the skiing is amazing but it's because they didn't ski all summer. 30-50cm of snow over ground. Crust on solar aspects (on some micro features found 2 layers, one on ground, one just above it). Didn't see any slab formation but the deep powder people reported after the last storm has condensed. Lots of rocks to hit and lots of people skiing the more common areas.

Steady flurries, at times heavy, from noon onwards. Light winds. Couple degrees below zero.

Top half of glacier is 4F WSL , Bottom half is facetted powder. Snow temps cold, skis were slow.

Riding quality is great! Just beware of hidden dangers below the surface and thin spots also observed some sluffing in steep terrain