Kokanee

Went for a ride after work. +8 at 600m, -1 at 1900m at 5pm. Snow was wet and slushy up to 1600m, transitioned to sticky until 1750m, then powder above that. North and east slopes rode great in trees. Lots of small loose wet slides on south and west facing slopes. Be prepared to ride extended sections of gravel if you're going up FSR's this time of year.

Skied alpine and TL terrain on NE to NW aspects from 2350m to 2000m in the selkirks, east of the kokanee range. 15-25cm of new snow fell in the April 1st storm, forming a soft unreactive 4F slab. Evidence of natural windslab activity during the storm from this new snow in immediate ridgetop lees. HN produced loose dry with skier traffic, that arrested in steep terrain and didn't entrain more mass. 1 suspected skier accidental persistent slab occured, see avalanche description.

We saw many recent natural avalanches in avy paths along the way up. Also we easily set off slab avalanches on small banks along the road. Conditions are spicy and very reactive.

the snowpack test results was enough red flags for us to make a decision to turn around and not traverse across the slope. Read further for snowpack results on the next tab...

Noticed a good amount of whumpfing on approach. Mostly in open canopy treeline and on shaded undulating slopes. One instance of a widespread settlement or large whumpf around 2000m on undulating terrain resulted in a “dropping” sensation to some members of our party while touring up and trees appeared to snow bomb up to 30ft away giving us the feeling that remote triggering would be very likely. Riding down we noticed pillows and trees would settle and slough/ drop snow either upon approach or while we passed, occurring anywhere between 5-20ft away. We rode one of two lower angles and well supported avi paths, the adjacent avi path with a well defined steep cliff appeared to have an old slide on it, 60-80cm crown that ran about 60m, or the entirety of the steep pitch and deposited in the creek draw below the pitch. Snow is very cold and slow, inspiring travel into higher and steeper terrain but the avi conditions present would suggest otherwise!

snow quality was amazing and preserved at treeline. We traveled between BTL to 2100M. We witnessed many storm slab (approx 30-40cm) releases on convex unsupported rolls between 1700m - 2100m on what Im guessing was the Dec 5 SH interface. Lots of shooting cracks and whumpfs were also observed. There was a rise in temperature as sun came out but it stayed below freezing level between 1700m and 2100m for the day.

Couple laps in the Outlook area. Most notably we had a skier remote size 1 later in the day on a steep unsupported feature at 1900m W asp (see avalanche tab). Saw plenty evidence of wind affect in exposed terrain W-NW as well as the odd whumph in isolated pockets of harder windslab. Overall snow quality was great as long as you steered clear of anything with even a little S in it. Solars definitely have a decent suncrust. Saw pinwheeling and small loose wet avalanches on solar aspects midday. Noted some older (24-48hr) cornice failures which triggered small slabs. Good day in the mountains, still heads up hockey out there.

If you haven't seen our video snowpack summary from yesterday, start there, it's still valid today: https://youtu.be/CDxrLgJS6kA The storm slab resting on the Jan 11 surface hoar/crust is really quieting down, there is a lingering deep persistent slab instability, but the riding is reasonably good right now and folks are starting to push into bigger terrain without consequence. Wind exposed features at upper elevations are wind hammered, and ski penetration up high is minimal. The December crust/facet interface is deep, and still a player, but it's a numbers game now. Is it triggerable on 1 in 100 slopes? 1 in 500? I'm honestly unsure, but with the current temperature regime it doesn't seem to be changing much. Watch for wind slabs up high, avoid rock outcroppings, and anywhere the snowpack goes from thick to thin. Enjoy the conditions at mid-elevations. The storm snow is settling quickly, and there is a zipper crust on the surface, but the sledding is excellent. The skiing is of reasonable quality on north facing mid elevation terrain too.

Awesome first real turns of the season. Went to the same area yesterday and had whumpfing and cracks so switched it up today and mellowed out our terrain choices and found much better conditions and stability. After our first lap and some prodding of the snowpack we ended up skiing some steeper terrain and had some sloughing but nothing major. Overall great day.

Good news: HS increases from ~100 cm at 1,600 m to 185 cm at ~2,200 m. 5-30 cm of low density HST depending on wind transport. There are several other crusts below Nov 15 MFcr, but the bottom meter of the snowpack is rounding, moist and happy. Bad news: Loud powder skiing. The ultra low density new snow provides minimal support. Expect fast, loose dry slides on steep slopes. Challenging skinning conditions - ski crampons recommended. The wind has scoured down to the crust in many locations at treeline and above, leaving a fat-skinny snowpack. Wind Light - W/SW gusting to Moderate

Spent the day ski touring up Woodbury Ck in Kokanee park. We parked at around 1300 m and skinned up to 2000 m. On our way up we were surprised not to find the new crust from the hot spell. It was just a denser layer of snow with about 25 cm of new snow on top. We had good visibility and could see sloughing of the new snow at treeline and in the alpine from yesterday and a couple of small wind slabs in the alpine that looked older. There were a few wet loose avalanches from the hot spell but no slabs from then. The wind was calm and we didn't see any blowing snow.

Overall excellent touring and skiing conditions. 7cm low density over 4F facetted/settled snow making for enjoyable ski quality from 2000m to around 1500m where the low elevation crust becomes more noticeable and skiing conditions become challenging.

Few clouds in the am, clouds rolled in around 2 pm. No precip and calm winds even at ridge top. Ski pen around 20cm. Widespread surface hoar growth on the surface, up to 10-15mm. Thin sun crust starting to form on steep solar slopes. Saw one sz 1.5 Na storm slab on steep feature below cliffs that seemed to have occured in the past 48hrs, about 20cm deep. Few small loose wet and pinwheeling off of steep solar features.

Compression test very easy under the December 8th crust. No results on an extended column test or on the December 13th Surface hoar.

Third consecutive day up at Redfish of sledding/touring. Lower valleys around 1700m filled with up to 50cm of wind sifted snow on top of a 5-6mm crust. Upper treed slopes of 30-42 degrees was variable with 20-40cm of fresh snow over a less dense 2-3mm crust. We were in the same zone all 3 days. Our tracks from Thursday and Friday were fully buried by Saturday. We sidehilled the sleds across partially open slopes (cut block) starting around 20 degrees and went progressively higher up to 30 degrees with no reactivity.

We toured up Redfish Creek to go ski some trees and immediately noticed tonnes of signs. We saw a natural avalanche on a 35ish degree slope that propagated probably 20m or more in some open trees. We then decided to stick to super low angle dense trees and toured up sub 30 slopes but had at least 3 good whumps. We dug a pit at the top and got a sudden planar result at 4 from the wrist on our compression test failing 30cms down. On the way down a group member ski cut a sub 30-degree slope and was able to trigger a large slab that propagated quickly. (The photo of the pit is not of the result but just some of the layers. The result was sudden planar down 30)

Evidence of previous wet loose cycle to size 3 from steep solar aspects past 24-36 hours. No new Avis

It was obvious the snow has gone through many melt freeze cycles over the past week. I witnessed lots of sloughing (sz 1-1.5) on steep sun exposed slopes, even the north facing aspects in the morning.

Strong flurries in the morning brought new snow totals to roughly 50 cm, but by midday the powder was heavily affected by blowing snow, tree bombs, and a rapidly forming sun crust. There was evidence of slab and loose avalanches running in the new snow in alpine terrain and in long avalanche paths. We could also break off small slabs by jumping on convex rolls. We found the Feb 22 surface hoar layer buried 115 cm deep and showing signs of reactivity in our tests so this weak layer was definitely a factor in our decision making.

A grey day in the Northwest facing bowl just west of Mount Cornfield in the Kokanee Range near Nelson. We skied West, North and Southeast aspects between 2250m and 1800m. Found good protected powder snow on Northwest aspects. Wind effect near ridge top and new wind slabs in immediate lee of South East winds. Minor cracking and whumpfing observed in these areas. Sun crust on steep West aspects at treeline and on most steeper solar aspects. Test profile at 1950m on North aspect showed no results to compression test in top 100cm. Height of snow in this location was 195cm.

Small slabby slides observed on micro features throughout the day.

Snow surface is crusty on lower elevation solar aspects. Surface hoar is variable, up to 10mm. In some places it lies over a crust on Solar aspects. Saw two sz 2 loose wet avalanches in steep terrain on S/SE aspects 24-48 hours old. Excellent confidence with stability made steep slopes a reasonable choice today.

Saw numerous natural size 1 and 2 avalanches in virtually all avalanche paths, along open slopes adjacent to road, and along ridge lines. Large propagations with large crowns observed with ridge lines and in open avalanche paths. We dug at pit at 1500 meters on a south west facing slope and had a full sudden collapse of an extended column test with one compression hit. It failed 150 cm down on a buried surface hoar and facet layer. We tried to replicate this at 1800 meters on a similar slope and did not have the same results; no surface hoar and facet layer present.