Northwest Coastal
Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 28th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 27th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 26th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Loose Wet, Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 25th, 2025Ridge walk
Did a ridge walk from no dog to west bowl. Some localized whoumphing especially in thinner area (near ridges). Some mini slab remotely triggered (10-20) meters away in unsupported terrain thin snowpack (failing on facet looking crystal).
We dug a pit near the north entrance to eden lake (mellow ridge entrance) found a surface hoar layer down 60 cm. Did an ECT and compression test with no results. (Multiple medium to hard result down 20 and 30 cm on the compression test and no propagation in the ECT test.
No significant natural activities with the exception of point releases on south aspects slopes. (Some size 1 )
longprefrancois,
Monday 24th March, 2025 7:00PM
Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 24th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 23rd, 2025Zimmy Trees Uptrack Knoll Goes
mitch.blaine,
Sunday 23rd March, 2025 3:00PM
Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Storm Slabs.
Published: Mar 22nd, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Storm Slabs.
Published: Mar 21st, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Storm Slabs.
Published: Mar 20th, 2025Shames 3rd knoll
Boarder accidentally triggered a sz 1 on the convex roll near the top. Was not knocked over but slide debris pushed him a bit and he continued riding out of the slide. Crown looked to be approx 40 cms and perhaps 20m wide, slide ran about 50m.
terracegary,
Thursday 20th March, 2025 2:00PM
Lots of new snow for the equinox
Great load of new snow, increasing with elevation with 55cm of available snow over a first weak layer in the snowpack (this is below the Dome at ≈1250m) and a HS over 320cm.
The 55cm + is mostly powder although feels like it dropped the wrong side up. There’s definitely a difference in density throughout the new snow and feels like it needs time to settle down properly. Some wind slabs were felt as well, just below the Dome again.
Happy equinox,
yan.kaczynski,
Thursday 20th March, 2025 1:30PM
Electric Lunch Lady Land
Snowing 2-5 cm/hr in the cutblock and strong SE winds through the day. Temps rising to near 0C by noon. Initially tried to ski up the standard Sleeping Beauty route but immediately encountered numerous remote triggered avalanches to size 1 in small features to 30 degrees or more. Said "To Hell with this!" and sought shelter on mellower treed slopes. Still more remote triggers to size 1 and eventually shut it down for the day.
hansiem,
Wednesday 19th March, 2025 7:00PM
Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Storm Slabs.
Published: Mar 19th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Storm Slabs.
Published: Mar 18th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 17th, 2025Sun...fun..and saw a couple slabs 😎
Super nice day out at Shames 😎 light if any wind in p lot with am temps below 0 with pm temps up to 4 at lodge. Remained cool in the alpine with cold snow except slight moist top snow in south facing slopes at top tee. Wind increasing with elevation into alpine from the SWish. (Still only light to mod.) 20 ish cms of recent new snow. Excellent ski quality N facing where not wind effected 👍 few recent slabs sz 1/2 seen. Natural and ? Skiers initiated. High SE facing slope start (super bowl, far lookers Left) and knolls tree shoots (N facing treeline start zn). Cold N side tree shoots was cold smoke white room awesome!
travisluvsbikes,
Monday 17th March, 2025 12:00PM
Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 16th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs, Persistent Slabs.
Published: Mar 15th, 2025Marys run
Cold and windy today , pretty quiet in Shames backyard. Popped 2 or 3 little wind pockets on the steep roll over around Mary's run. Seen a few other size ones on the steeper stuff closer to the dome traverse
ColinM,
Saturday 15th March, 2025 1:43PM
Little wind loaded
Skied Fish & Chips twice with great snow and little movement. Then kicked off a small storm/wind slab in Fayzurs. Ran on hard crust. Strong wind from north today plus some new snow deposited in Fayzurs. Also saw small crowns on North slope of 3rd knoll.
julian.krick,
Saturday 15th March, 2025 2:30AM
Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs, Persistent Slabs.
Published: Mar 14th, 2025Larsen
Spent the last few days at Larsen cabin. Overall, we found great powder skiing across the north side of the compass and observed no avalanche activity, natural or human-triggered. The few slopes we traveled on with south exposure had a noticeable sun crust buried about 8cms.
We dug a pit on Mar 14th at 1200m, NNE aspect, and identified two layers of concern, one down 50cms and one down 95cms. HS 350cms (much better than last year at this time!!!). Our ECT cracked but did not propagate down 50cms on 25. When we pried the block off, it broke at 50 on a fully planar surface. Using a shovel, I then pried the remaining block off and it broke with another planar release on the layer down 95cms. The 50cms above the layer were right side up with low density powder on the surface that had accumulated over the course of last week and denser settled snow underneath.
The first two days, we traveled in the alpine and subalpine and skied a number of steep lines up to 45 degrees. The low density snow on the surface produced large sluffs, but we observed no avalanche activity. We experienced whumpfing on ridge tops and setting a skin track up a steep treed slope with south exposure (suspected settlement happening on the sun crust down 8cms), but not in any of the northerly terrain we were skiing.
We had a strong pulse of SW wind in the early hours of Sunday morning that formed noticeable wind slabs, but we observed no natural activity even in steep loaded terrain and were unable to get anything to move, including on a few steep test slopes. Saturday night through Sunday brought around 10cms of new snow. We spent Sunday skiing surprisingly deep powder laps in treeline with great snow down to 950m.
ngottlieb,
Friday 14th March, 2025 11:00AM
Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs, Persistent Slabs.
Published: Mar 13th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs, Persistent Slabs.
Published: Mar 12th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Wind Slabs, Persistent Slabs.
Published: Mar 11th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Storm Slabs, Persistent Slabs.
Published: Mar 10th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Storm Slabs, Persistent Slabs.
Published: Mar 9th, 2025Winter conditions for a change
Proper winter out there for the first time in weeks. The new snow from Friday night dried out a bit on Saturday night which made for good skiing even on south aspects. Snow remained cold to valley bottom all day, surprisingly, despite some rollers coming off the rock bands in the morning sun.
We skied two laps on Zymbuk1 and two on North Bowl. The northerly aspects in the zymacord drainage were harboring what seemed to be a melt freeze (rain?) mid-storm interface down about 10 that produced consistent results to size 1.5 on steep unsupported features (see pic). We also observed a few naturals in that drainage on this layer that may have gone on Saturday with the warming.
The steep west terrain off north bowl did not have the same problem.
ngottlieb,
Sunday 9th March, 2025 8:00AM
Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Storm Slabs, Persistent Slabs.
Published: Mar 8th, 2025Anderson storm slab
srath,
Saturday 8th March, 2025 2:00PM
Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Storm Slabs, Persistent Slabs.
Published: Mar 7th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Storm Slabs, Persistent Slabs.
Published: Mar 6th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Storm Slabs, Persistent Slabs.
Published: Mar 6th, 2025Great deal of alpine lines
Great deal of lines were skied over the last 4 days on Mt Remo and also in the Anderson cabin area, with way better conditions than expected on N and NE faces. Skiing was at its best high in the alpine in sheltered areas, with 6 to 12cm of cold dry powder and surface hoar on a supportive base. We skied both mellow and very aggressive terrain with no results. Crust was a concern only down valley bottoms, tighter trees, and S/SE/SW aspects. We stayed away as much as possible from cornices, especially during the long sunny breaks of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoon. We skied out back to Terrace with incoming snow and some SW ridgetop winds.
yan.kaczynski,
Thursday 6th March, 2025 12:30PM
Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 5th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Persistent Slabs, Wind Slabs.
Published: Mar 4th, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Storm Slabs, Persistent Slabs.
Published: Mar 3rd, 2025Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Storm Slabs, Persistent Slabs.
Published: Mar 2nd, 2025North Terrace conditions report
As usual, much less precip in the area north of Terrace than at Shames over the last couple weeks so snowpack is firmer and less complicated.
In the morning we encountered an overnight melt freeze crust beginning around 800m, it was close to two inches thick by 1000m but the snow underneath remained wet and isothermal. Above that things dried out quite a bit and the snow surface was firm and supportive. Ski pen 5cm boot pen 25cm. By the time we came down, overnight crust had softened and from 1000m down the snow was fully isothermal schmoo. Top 450m was pretty good.
Heard some avalanches and/or rock slides on the steep south face of Glacier in the hot sun but could not see any of them. Evidence of an old but significant natural cycle on north slopes off the ridge—maybe a week ago?
Access is...deteriorating fast.
ngottlieb,
Sunday 2nd March, 2025 4:00PM
Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Storm Slabs, Persistent Slabs.
Published: Mar 1st, 2025Dome
Top of dome was untracked and very supportive, top of Fayzurs skied very nice no activity. 3rd Knoll almost refilled tracks from previous two days, solid riding with no activity.
kbekri,
Saturday 1st March, 2025 10:00AM
Avalanche Forecast
Problems: Storm Slabs, Deep Persistent Slabs.
Published: Feb 28th, 2025Storm slabs on the knolls
ekennedy,
Thursday 27th February, 2025 12:00PM
Walk in slack country of Shames
We skied the last two days in the back of shames and stayed close by.
Too the top of the dome and skied below north bowl as well as slope between there and Mayy's run.
Snow was wet or had a thin temperature crust on polar aspect. Many hand sheers ... the new snow seems like bondin well to the feb 14 facets ... below the elevation to where the freezing level had come up too (1400m) anyway ... i would be very cautious above that ...
No signs of instabilities in the last two days except a few points release (wet loose 0.5/1)
We dug a pit skiers right of Mary's run at 1200 meters NW asp.
CTE 6 rp down 8
CTM 16 rp down 26
CTH 26 sc down 60 on the feb 14th
ECTN 8 down 8
ECTN24 down 26
No result on the feb 14th
longprefrancois,
Tuesday 25th February, 2025 5:00PM
Shames
3rd Knowl Ski today. Cooler temps have firmed up the snow surface however it is not yet supportive to skis. Was difficult skiing on all aspects 1200m down to 700m at the base. No argument for a 2nd lap. Did not venture higher due to poor visibility. Foggy with a light ridge wind out of the south. Snowing less than 1cm an hour down to the base. Ski pen was a resistant 20cm.
lucasmatt,
Tuesday 25th February, 2025 11:00AM
Winter/Spring
Significantly more snow on that side of the ridge compare to Shames with a 50cm+ of available powder. Surprinsingly light in the morning, and as expected much more satured and heavy in the afternoon and closer to the S/SW aspects just above Shames. I found the snow in steep terrain to bond relatively well with the previous layers, although we didn’t touch any big features above in the ALP, also knowing what we skied is not representative of what’s happening in the area right now (aka propagation and really deep (up to 1m25 deep crown) size 2.5+ slab avalanches the day before). We did produce wet loose avalanches in Fay-zurs and the V towards the end of the day, but didn’t experienced shooting cracks or whumphings in most of the terrain we traveled. The day started with S11 and tapered down and back up, on and off, same with the sun and fog/light clouds. Light NW wind at ridgetop, lesser than the day before (50km/h SW winds).
yan.kaczynski,
Sunday 23rd February, 2025 9:00AM
Warming up in the knolls
Did a bunch of short laps around the upper knolls and a fayzurs. 10-20cm of new snow, pretty fun up top but gets very heavy and sticky below ~1000m. Lots of wet loose sluffs on all aspects on moderate to steep open slopes, some running pretty big, both natural and skier triggered. New snow did not seem to be bonding well to the wind-hammered surface below.
ekennedy,
Friday 21st February, 2025 12:00PM
Oh so sticky
Yesterdays fluff turned to today's mush. Freeze line rising to 1000 or so m's. Next to no wind. Variable recent snow amounts between 15 to 30 cms depending on elevation and aspect. Nice turns down 2nd knoll till meadow below, then board suck to valley bottom. Worse with further descent. Not a bad uptrack through no dogs but once up to dry snow the stickies to the skins was atrocious! Skin wax couldn't keep up. Hauling 5 lbs of snow per foot up hill. No whumphs or cracks, some wet ish sloughs in steeper slopes that could gain mass in terrain traps. Namely the first bit of No Socks skiers left. No slabs or shooting cracks. Top half of both Cats and no socks was nice riding. Than sole sucking sticky below that 1000 to 1100 m mark. Did hear big rumbles from Valley of Doom around 1 pm.
travisluvsbikes,
Friday 21st February, 2025 12:00PM
Clague Fresh Tracks
w.johnson59,
Wednesday 19th February, 2025 10:00AM
Very welcomed powder under the sun
Amazing snow E of the Kitsumkalum River. The upper powdery snowpack varied with elevation and aspect (skied mostly W), 5 to 20cm of low density powder snow, mostly around 15cm. No wind, big sun, old crowns here and there and nothing new really on the avy side. The low elevation snowpack is still comparable to an average end of October.
There’s great skiing to be done before the next precips.
yan.kaczynski,
Monday 17th February, 2025 11:00AM
7 Sisters
Conditions consistent with the forecast, lots of faceted boot top pow on lee aspects with some surface hoar growth. Some small but very reactive hard wind slabs in the alpine. It would be very hard to find anything bigger than D1 but small pockets easily propagated.
primmerj3131,
Monday 17th February, 2025 8:00AM
Switchback Surface Hoar
Some very large surface hoar, especially near water sources. Sizes ranged from 1cm up to 6cm+
h8.scott,
Saturday 15th February, 2025 2:00PM
FayZurs no bueno
Went for a waddle up the dome, turned around as the snow was grim and we didn’t have much rally in us. Skied fayzurs out, it was a mix of wind crust and breakable crust.
kaibj,
Saturday 15th February, 2025 12:30PM
Shames Sastrugi
Great day of terrain familiarization in the Shames backcountry today. The avalanche hazards is low. The alpine is for the most part blown out and rock hard. In sheltered terrain we found up to 40 cm of unconsolidated faceted snow over a well settled mid pack.
AvCan Northwest,
Friday 14th February, 2025 5:00PM
Beautiful Beauprie
Spent the day exploring Beauprie, we saw a couple older avalanches from last week but nothing recent. This area features many smaller slopes and offered great riding in sheltered meadows. One of the more significant avalanches hazards in the area are the terrain traps caused by the many creeks and gullies. Exposed areas are wind effected and firm. Seek sheltered terrain for the best riding.
AvCan Northwest,
Thursday 13th February, 2025 5:00PM
South Douglas wind slammed
Today we rode up the South Douglas area near Terrace BC. We had planned on skiing but the conditions were very poor with widespread sastrugi and very hard wind scoured surfaces. Since the alpine is wind hammered, we switched our focus to finding good faceted snow in meadows for sledding. Lots of sun and minimal wind.
AvCan Northwest,
Tuesday 11th February, 2025 7:00PM
To the moon and back—a few glacier and snow obs
Went for a long tour today to the Saddlehorn on the WB Glacier from Shames and back to Shames.
A variety of snow along the way, most of it hard and wind affected as expected, but also some low density powder in high and sheltered N/NW slopes. One E Face closer back to Shames held good snow as well, provided by recent wind transport. Windslabs felt strongly bonded in most places, but tried to avoid convex rolls anyhow.
The cover on glaciers past Superbowl is thin, comparable to last year around the same time, but thinner. As expected they are just a few crevasses showing off, but they are wide open and deep. The cornices above are also not as developed as usual around Feb.
The snow coverage on the edge of S Morris and Morris pass is way thinner than last year. The WB was heavily wind scoured.
yan.kaczynski,
Tuesday 11th February, 2025 6:30PM
Sterling Gold
We rode the Sterling sled zone today and observed a considerable amount of terrain. There was one sled triggered size 2 avalanche that we think may have been triggered on the weekend. This avalanche failed down 45cm on a layer of 5-7mm surface hoar. There was lots of evidence of older avalanches from more than a week ago, but this was the only recent one we observed. Great riding conditions in sheltered terrain.
AvCan Northwest,
Tuesday 11th February, 2025 5:00PM
Silly walk up cornice ridge
Explored up cornice ridge in some really funky wind affected conditions. Down in the trees had facets on top of 2 melt freeze crusts, then up in the alpine was a mix of impenetrable wind slab, sastrugi, crusts, powder pockets, and everything in between. A few good powder turns on west facing trees lower down the ridge into mystic. Made for a adventurous day, and still more fun than expected!
ekennedy,
Tuesday 11th February, 2025 12:00PM
North Bowl & Prayer Flags
No instabilities whatsoever. The riding was as good as you can imagine. Very wind affected in North Bowl, Prayer Flags not so much. Variable between pockets of wind loaded and wind slabs in North Bowl. Prayer flags were half decent. A little crusty but also some fun turns.
paxtongabrielc,
Sunday 9th February, 2025 12:00PM
Simple Slide
gordweary,
Saturday 1st February, 2025 2:00PM
Reactive snow
New snow covered old tracks and where there were none, felt like ≈50cm of available dry powder on top of a crust from last week’s warmer temps. Most of it cracked and slid on steeper turns both at and BTL. Windy in the ALP but sheltered in trees the day was calm and not as cold as expected. Partly sunny, light snow.
yan.kaczynski,
Saturday 1st February, 2025 12:30AM
North bowls
3 laps on North Bowl today, it had a full refresh from yesterday with 10ish cm fresh and some wind transport over night. Only some minor sloughing in the steepest of slopes.
Hand shears of the new snow were quite variable from easy to no result on sun crusts throughout the day. One localized area was quite reactive between the new 5cm snow and the previous 30, the top 5 slid on isolating the column and was repeatable in that one area (a S shoulder along skin track below 3rd knoll).
chataway.mike,
Friday 31st January, 2025 11:00AM
Le chat
srath,
Friday 31st January, 2025 12:00AM
North Bowl
We did three laps off the Dome into North Bowl today. Amazing riding all day. Only sign of instability was some mild sloughing on the steep parts of the slopes. Not enough to be worrisome.
paxtongabrielc,
Thursday 30th January, 2025 3:00PM
Reactive Storm Slab
Storm slab reactive to sled traffic near treeline at Beaupre. South and south east aspects released sled accidental soft slabs about 50cm thick. Could be consequential on bigger slopes.
rfehr65,
Thursday 30th January, 2025 1:00PM
Shames
Skied two laps off the Dome south and southeast aspects to Pollywood and Waterfall. Southeast aspect was stripped back to the meltfreeze crust. South near Old Faithful was dreamy powder in the sun. Main entrance of Northbowl and the ridgeline of Fish n' Chips were stripped back to old tracks. Looked like poor skiing. Fish n' Chips looked wind affected. Best snow was treeline and below. Recent storm snow depth varied from bare melt freeze crust to 60cm foot pen.
Recent crown off Superbowl but other than that with very good visibility no other recent activity. Ridge winds were light to moderate with no blowing snow. Was cold in the shade.
lucasmatt,
Thursday 30th January, 2025 12:00PM
Shames Jan 29
No new occurrences observed in area between No Dogs and Blue Boy. Bloodlust Bowl deposit (across from access road switchback) appears to have some new debris on top. Also observed (from top of t-bar) a large deposit from climber's left side of Valley of Certain Doom, between Super Bowl and Vitamin D deposits, that I didn't notice last week; possible recent but not 100% sure. (See photo)
rod.gee,
Wednesday 29th January, 2025 11:00AM
Prayer Flags
Great skiing! 25-30cm new low density snow at 1400m. This overlies various surfaces (MFcr/ wind effect/or old snow (asp and elevation dependant)
FL ~400-500m most of last night in the shames drainage. Obvious wind effect on easterly slopes. Looks a bit hammered in some locations. Moderate westerly winds at ridge top with light snow transport today.
Decent visibility this morning, no new slab avalanches observed in the immediate Shames backcountry. Some sluffing out of extreme terrain on drive up.
Snowing again S1 at 1:30 when leaving parking lot woohoo 🎉
adventuremicpye,
Wednesday 29th January, 2025 12:00AM
Hidden Lake & Geronimo Bowl
Fun day riding Hidden Lake and Geronimo Bowl. Hidden Lake - wind affected at the top, bottom was dreamy powder run. Geronimo Bowl - top was wind affected, middle was great, bottom was heavy and tough riding. Saw loads of pinwheeling off of trees and rock bands on sun affected terrain.
paxtongabrielc,
Sunday 26th January, 2025 10:00AM
Mt Remo - West Face
Skied west face of Mt Remo.
Crowns from natural avalanches could be seen all along the steep south side of the west face. Crowns were forming across the exposed rock just under the ridgeline.
Snow pack was pretty thin on the center ridge we used to skin up. Bergscrund for the ice patch was exposed and quite prominent.
North side of the face skied very well, without any sluffing. Snow was powder, maybe slightly wind compacted.
Project pillows was deep powder and sluffy.
Coming out Mystic valley was the crux of the day. The creek is not filled in enough to ski down yet.
Riley Redpath,
Friday 24th January, 2025 1:00PM
Soft turns in the Shames Backcountry
We checked out the Shames Backcountry today.
We observed a previous avalanche cycle (size 1-2) from Wednesday's storm. We saw one size-2 persistent slab in steep, rocky terrain on an east aspect. Avalanches that were 24-48 hours old. We did not observe any new avalanches today.
We additionally observed some wind effected snow at treeline ridge crests and on a treeline/alpine north aspect. There was a light southwest wind today.
In most treeline areas there is around 30cm of unconsolidated snow sitting on 20cm of old settled snow. Below this there is a crust that exists up to at least 1400m.
Temperatures remained below freezing over the day and there was a bit of afternoon cloud.
There is surface hoar (2-5mm) on the snow surface at treeline and below treeline.
That Shames Backcountry was great today! We look forward to our next trip out there. Enjoy the weekend!
AvCan Northwest,
Friday 24th January, 2025 12:00PM
Soft turns in the Shames Backcountry
We checked out the Shames Backcountry today.
We observed a previous avalanche cycle (size 1-2) from Wednesday's storm. We saw one size-2 persistent slab in steep, rocky terrain on an east aspect. Avalanches that were 24-48 hours old. We did not observe any new avalanches today.
We additionally observed some wind effected snow at treeline ridge crests and on a treeline/alpine north aspect. There was a light southwest wind today.
In most treeline areas there is around 30cm of unconsolidated snow sitting on 20cm of old settled snow. Below this there is a crust that exists up to at least 1400m.
Temperatures remained below freezing over the day and there was a bit of afternoon cloud.
There is surface hoar (2-5mm) on the snow surface at treeline and below treeline.
That Shames Backcountry was great today! We look forward to our next trip out there. Enjoy the weekend!
AvCan Northwest,
Friday 24th January, 2025 12:00PM
Laszlo
On South side of the Dome we triggered many size 1 and 2 avalanches, down around 25 to 35 cm on a sun crust.
laszlo.r45,
Thursday 23rd January, 2025 2:00PM
Thursday refresh…with some slabs
Refresh button hit for another Thursday at Shames. About 30 + cm’s of fresh cold snow in T bar land but white trees well below the lodge. Little wind but some wind effect noticed in higher alpine lines. Temp approaching zero at the lodge towards days end but Snow cold above 800 m but getting heavier close to lodge level. Several observed naturals to sz 1-2+ in alpine and at tree line. Thunder bowl, (wide propagation) tree triangle through to blue boy (south through west facing slopes) with some rider triggered sz 1 slab above fazurs/waterfall creek merge (old faithful line I believe) on sun crusted base steep south facing terrain. Otherwise not so steep facing lower fazurs slopes rode well with sloughs/no slabs and Pollywood was pretty sweet too. Leading skin guy had settlement on flat bench well below the memorial rock as we skinned up towards pollywood.
travisluvsbikes,
Thursday 23rd January, 2025 12:00PM
Zymacord ridge walk
Walk along the zymacord ridge today, dark side/waterfall and no dog/geronimo yesterday.
No signs of instability anywhere the snow was amazing on all aspects except on south slope where a 2 cm sun crust is present as high as the top of the ridge.
The exploration mission in the trees was interesting. It is possible to get thru the water fall on skis but a few technical moves are required!
No dog is still pretty bonny... dust on crust for most of the way up (tree bombed everywhere)
We observe significant size SH growing up to size 10. Pretty much everywhere with the exception of ridge top were moderate wind was felt ... light wind transport from east winds.
longprefrancois,
Sunday 19th January, 2025 7:00PM
Just a few obs
Beautiful past few days both in terms of wx and snow quality allowed to step gradually in the ALP and into bigger terrain with confidence by testing terrain.
There was a recent avalanche cycle (Thursday and Friday) that hit steeper slopes, mainly under trigger points like rock bands and cornices. We observed some very large (size 3) recent avalanches in the ALP west of Superbowl, most notably a big one on South Morris, same aspect as Vitamin D and similar slope angle. Other major ones were mainly on N faces.
Glaciers are filling in but the snow quality wasn’t as appealing as E/SE/W/SW slopes.
As we opened the uptrack to the summit of Superbowl we could clearly experience a different snowpack from everything lower down towards Shames. A melt-freeze crust was present on 3/4 of the way up on the slightly more S aspect of the face. We skied a more E aspect that had none of that crust and provided incredible riding.
Friday we’ve cut down a chunk of cornice (a meter thick and about 4 meters wide) at the top of Geronimo (that had no tracks yet), the quite significant weight took the new snow out along the way, but didn’t step down to any other layers in the snowpack.
yan.kaczynski,
Sunday 19th January, 2025 5:00PM
Shames ridge walk
Rode a few lines along shames ridge on Sunday. Quite windy on top of the ridge, blowing from the NE-ish. Lots of wind deposition in isolated north-facing midslopes and lots of wind effect along the ridgetop. Great powder skiing on fish and chips and third knoll (west and north aspects) but very crusty skiing a bit past fishbowl (south aspect) for the whole line. Started feeling the rain crust under the new snow at around 1000m elevation near valley bottom.
ekennedy,
Sunday 19th January, 2025 1:00PM