Kitimat

Spent Monday-Thursday at Larsen cabin. Strong arctic outflow conditions from Monday night through Wednesday night with sustained 60-80km/hr northeast winds at ridgetop the entire period and temps between -15 and -20C. We found good skiing in sheltered treed terrain, though the wind effect crept down over the week. What was holding on as soft, sheltered snow below ridgetops on west aspects had turned into styrofoamy hard slabs of varying widths by Thursday with soft snow only remaining in areas sheltered by mature trees. Wind continued ripping until sometime overnight Wednesday. It was calm and a bit warmer when we woke up Thursday although temps were inverted throughout the day with it remaining very cold in valley bottoms. High cloud came in mid-afternoon Thursday. We observed surprisingly little natural activity over the course of the week, just two size 2s in loaded features (S and SW). This morning (Thursday), we accidentally triggered a size 1.5 hard wind slab slab on a small feature while climbing Mt. Gordon. We were surprised by how far into the mellower terrain on the sides it pulled out and one person (me) was knocked over by it. The crown was roughly a meter deep and it ran on the crust layer. Overall there is widespread wind effect across most aspects, even to well below treeline, except in fairly well treed terrain or in the lee of bands of mature trees where settled powder makes for excellent skiing. We thought mellow south terrain might be more sheltered, but the burn behind the hut was variable and wind effected even as low as 770m.

Today we rode into Robinson to check out the zone, the early January surface hoar, facet, crust complex and its reactivity to the warming temperatures. With warm temperatures and significant new snow load over this layer the danger rating was High in alpine and tree line and we treated it as such by traveling in very simple terrain and avoiding avalanche terrain. At 900m all signs of the recently groomed trail were gone under 35+cm of new snow. While poking around meadows trying to find our way to the cabin we remotely triggered a small slope from 100m away producing a healthy size 1.5 avalanche. In an attempted extended column test our column failed immediately upon cutting all three sides down 70cm, no taps needed. This warm storm slab and our extended column test failed on the early January surface hoar layer down 70cm although the crown depth was over 1 meter on wind loaded portions of the slope. This is certainly a precursor of whats to come for any location holding this January layer with the incoming warm temperature in the region. The sledding was extremely deep and with these observations we decided to save ourselves a wet day of digging sleds out of holes and turned tail back to the valley bottom.

Saw some large rain gunnels. On larger cliff faces saw some large cornices break and cause slides (likely earlier in the week)

We toured up the Wedeene drainage today. In the tight trees the snowpack consists of up to 20 cm of storm snow over a previous strong crust and tree bombs. As we gained elevation to treeline the old storm snow increased to almost 50cm over the previous thick crust. We experienced widespread whumpfing and shooting cracks caused by a layer of facets and surface hoar buried just above the thick crust. We chose conservative low angle terrain and avoided exposure to large slopes. We remotely triggered an avalanche, estimated as a size 2 while ascending the safe side of a ridge.

An exploratory day led to some half-decent turns in the trees, eight good turns in an avalanche path and a lot of alder-bashing to get there. Elevations below 800m could still use a meter or two more snow to make them more passable. More details in photo captions.

Went out to assess the conditions and maybe do mellow tree runs. Did a ski cut on a small N slope and some handshears that showed easy result down ~ 50cm. Felt a whumpf shortly after while skinning. Approaching treeline we saw naturals on lee side (N) of pretty much every steeper knolls there was. Sure enough the whole slope we wanted to check out flushed with crowns up to 1 meter. Went back to cabin..

Good base building. At a lower elevation alpine feature 15 - 25cm moist soft snow on the surface skied well. A supportive base underneath is so far made up of a few crusts and rounds moist to ground - sticking to lower angle and lee features for the best coverage. Suspect higher alpine will be a drier and we still need more data on the structure of the layers up there.

Hard crusty snow, lots of recent slides in the upper bowl above clague cabin. Recent rain, almost spring like conditions.

Rain all the way to clague cabin, slush up above the cabin. Snow was heavy and wet.

Nw slopes very wind effected and crusty, on other faces snow was l

Large cornice failure on a north slope 72 hours plus. Produced a Sz 3.5 that gouged and stepped down. Ran 500m vertical, 300m crown. Debris running to mid runout. Ski out on west facing steep BTL slope had numerous skier controlled loose wet Sz 1s gathering mass and flowing through thick regen. Skied powder in alpine to supportive schmoo at treeline to heavy snot below treeline. Convective flurries moved through but the sun kept slopes warm.

Obs from Friday and Saturday around middle creek area. Warm temps on Friday coupled with the new snow produced widespread natural avalanches on all aspects, we saw some crowns (+-30cm deep) on lee features but most avalanches were point releases starting in the steeps or from tree bombs. We found moist wet snow to 1300m, the greenhouse effect was strong with temps in the sun approx +5 degrees and light winds. We saw no evidence of the surface hoar instability in our pits or in the surrounding terrain.

Skied in the Middle creek drainage yesterday from 300-1400m on gladed, treed, and cutblock W facing terrain. -12, clear, and very light East wind. Average snowpack 180cm at 1000m. Snowprofile at 1000m on a W aspect, in a sparsely treed cutblock showed 40cm F snow over 20cm 4F snow over the Jan 6 surface hoar. Compression test moderate 14 taps Sudden Planer down 60cm on the Jan 6 surface hoar and compression test moderate 16 taps Sudden Planer on the Boxing Day surface hoar. Both layers were very well preserved. Numerous natural slabs had run during the storm to size 2 on all aspects in steep, open terrain treeline and below.