Kispiox

Following a torrential rain pour in Hazelton up until Monday midday, the rain felt up to 950m saturating around 5-10cm of the top layers. Anything below that 950m level has a horrendous breakable crust formed on the surface, even with new 1-3mm surface hoar growth from overnight. Above that elevation, around 10-20cm really nice medium density storm snow fell instead. At treeline and above, signs of wind slab formed everywhere. Upper alpine north-easterly steep cliff faces and pockets show multiple isolated wind slabs pull out at around the 1500-1600m elevation band, with crowns guesstimating around +/-50cm thick and size 1 sluffs running full path. Cornices seems to be growing and are still hanging up there. Down below, no whumping, no step down. Fairly mild temp below freezing with light sse wind up high.

Observed the biggest N aspect size 3 Na, crown around 1600m running down to full runout around 1000m, app. 24-48hrs old (see photo) Most of many other usual spots all ran in recent warm avy cycle, all surface snowmelt/wind slab related. Temperature crust exist from below treeline up to treeline. Treeline and above has wind/temperature crust combo. The crust is supportive for skiing if not pressing too heavily.

Great skiing on mellow slopes in the trees and lower elevation cut block. Abandoned plans to ski steep powder after snow pit.

Hasty pit at treeline, 1400 m, 35-40 degree sheltered slope. 15-20 cm uncompacted snow over 150 cm of well-settled, firm snowpack. No failure in compression test. During approach through clear-cut at 1000 m, noticeable icy crust covered by 15 cm snow.

Nov. 3, 2017 We skied a N-NE aspect in the Hazelton Range off the Date Creek FSR. The temperature was -5. The weather was sunny with moderate to strong westerly wind gusts, with wind transport at ridgetop. We observed a recent size 1.0 NA in the high alpine on a North aspect that broke just below ridge top over a shallow wind scoured rocky area. We observed another crown & 1.0-1.5 NA debris in the high alpine on a NE aspect that had cornices formed over the ridge top above it. We dug a pit ~1m deep on a sheltered NE facing ridge just above treeline. Did not do column tests. HS was 180cm. 12cm of fresh snow. Snow progressively got denser as it got deeper with a weaker (less dense) lower at 40cm down. No rain crust or sugary snow observed. Group of 5, we skied 2 lee-treed runs along treeline, one on an East aspect and one on a North aspect. Excellent ski quality. We observed wind scouring & shallower HS overall on alpine westerly aspects. We also experienced one snow crack (~5m width) at treeline on a lee East aspect when the last of the 5 skiers dropped in. It did not run. No whumping, hollow snow, or other cracking observed.