South Okanagan

Some signs of warming like pinwheels. The top 5 cm was sluffing on steep terrain. The base underneath felt stable.

Solo tour. Gained East Peak via black forest snowshoe trails + East Ridge. Started in the dark, Skied the area until 11 AM. Temps remained sub zero and clouds kept radiation low. Skied two laps in smokers bowl plus a third summit, skied out along the east ridge. Wind drift from week's precipitation had loaded onto smokers bowl and the east ridge, making 10-15 cm of low density high quality skiing on a bulletproof crust. Get out there while the conditions are this good. Of course, east peak summit and westerly faces were ice. Probed through smokers bowl and the Ridgeline, depths of 150 - 170 cm. Skied steep lines. No signs of recent activity. Amazing day.

Quick slack country turns on north face of BigWhite peak, NE aspect of east peak. Skinning at ridglines difficult - highly scoured. Everything that wasn’t a north aspect was terrible - mostly refrozen crap. On North facing aspects below ridge lines was 10cm of low density snow on smooth supportive crust which made for pleasant skiing. New snow was poorly bonded to the crust. Sluffing on steeper aspects. Surprisingly little windslab.

Skiied the back side of gem at big white. Dug a quick pit without a saw since I forgot it. About 20cm of fresh or wind transported snow sitting one some denser snow. Crust layer about 40cm down which was the failure point on our not very good column test. Snow felt very stable while skiing and we saw nothing triggered by any of the groups today.

Went up for a sunrise meditation on ol' east peak. Winds were blowing 60+ at TL and above. shooting cracks pretty much everywhere. Some slab releases even in less rowdy terrain. Suspect yesterday's dry loose is finding itself into a slab with a bit of time and a bit of wind. Skiing was horrible. Knee to waist deep on most aspects that hadn't been pillaged by the Nor-Easterly wind. Probably a better bet to break out the sea kayak this weekend or go to Revelstoke.

Great runs in spots off east peak. Snow was very light, and dry. No snowmen here. Only slides that occurred were on tests cuts on convex rolls. Wind affected snow will pile up around convexities and slide on the crust from last week. 30-35 degree slopes on northeast and south face were ridden and no slides triggered. Best snow was found in the trees. The ridge was heavily wind affected. NE face less so. NE face also had generally consistent snow, or gradual transition from deep to shallow. South face had most problems, with lots of rocks poking out, plus many places where snow rapidly changed from deep to shallow. Watch out for convex slopes. Wind gusted up to 60km/hr. Primarily SW, but did gust N at times.

Half decent riding in the right wind loaded pockets but still not really. Otherwise scrapey terrible crust(not surprising).

Almost slushy snow on the south side of east peak for a good time

We dug a pit off the back of Gem Lake. CTN on a 185 cm snowpack. Found a persistent weak layer about 15 cm down that appeared well bonded in this location. No failures observed in our tests.

East slope of east peak is incredibly hard. South side sun affect and fun. No avalanche signs or wet sluff

Lots of variable, wind scoured snow, although we found some nice pockets on the northern slopes and in the trees. Some crust sloughing off with deep turns on steeper slopes, but no signs of instability.

Went up and down E facing side of East Peak. Quite a few groups out today. A touch of soft over some hard packed and crunchy bits. Nothing major noted.

Rode a north facing aspect, fun turns. Pit dug on a NE aspect at 2230m , CT results were: CT2 down 5cm on surface hoar, resistant planar. CT10 down 12cm on crust, resistant planar Handshear test on north aspect at same elevation and found the top 3-5cm came away easily.

Quick laps on the NE bowl off east peak and the eastern ridge. NE bowl had variable conditions, but primarily 1cm easily breakable crust, above 5-20cm of powder which laid on top of the ice crust and facet layer that’s formed. Generally pretty solid. Wind affected in areas but mostly protected. We hit skiers left and right side of the bowl. No obvious signs of instability. Good riding. Final run was the east ridge from (almost) summit. Wind gusts up to 50km/hr SW and miserable up top. Wind affected all the way, watch for trigger points and thin snow. Best skiing all day was found in dense trees where there was mostly heavy powder above the ice/facet layer which we only hit occasionally.

Skinned up from BF parking lot @ the snowshoe trailhead, following the creek (Trappers?) Ran into the good and always smiling people from @AlpineWalrus doing the lord's work, aka AST1, as we ascended. Snowpack was wet and heavy on the way up until sub-alpine treeline. At this point we chose to ascend an ESE aspect following and staying skiers left of the NE bowl ridgeline. Upon exiting the treeline, snow became wind affected. As we approached the peak, lead skier reported light audible whumpfing. Noted recent avalanche activity on open northeast aspects in Smoker’s Bowl, with shallow storm slab crowns estimated at 10–15 cm. As a result, northeast aspects and Smoker’s Bowl were avoided. Best ski quality was found in low-angle treed terrain at and after descending out of the sub-alpine. Coverage was adequate with minimal obstacle exposure.

Mediocre riding conditions. Went hunting surface hoar beneath storm snow, found it plenty. Riding in the meadow on low angle terrain was pretty decent. Higher on the ridge was scoured and wind slabby.

While the resort looked a bit thin down low, the backcountry up high was glorious. It was -6 all day and despite the thick cloud, the riding was great. The snowpack was dense enough to provide easy climbing, with 20 cms of soft recent snow on top.

Had a nice day with the stability and vis dropping into the backside cliff bowl chutes and finishing the day on the backside of gem. As usual, wind affected up top and good quality riding in sheltered Lee areas. Ski cutting our line off gem produced sz 0.5 of the top 10-15 of new wind slab, definitely enough slough to pull you around. I wanted to highlight something I saw with my touring partner as there were quite a few folks enjoying the good touring conditions out there. It seems we had a few groups [in my opinion] making some travel decisions that might have got us all into trouble if a rare slide occurred or if the avy hazard had been higher. I don't want to shame anyone, just point out some hazards others may not have been aware of so that we can keep each other safer out there. In the attached picture, we had a skin track (yellow dotted line) that cut across the face of a few avy paths/ski lines. On top of the hazard of skiers up top, it feels [to me] like unnecessary exposure to overhead, should you remote one of those paths and bring something down on top of you. I saw at least 2 people using this route, but I imagine others would have taken it once it was set. Also, we had a fairly large group digging a pit (lower group outlined in blue) more or less in one of the ski lines/avy chutes. Same story with skiers overhead and being in an avalanche path. Not to mention a new hole someone might come across at high speed in the end of a run. The back bowl has a lot of nice mellow open meadows at the same aspect as those lines only a few hundred meters away that [I think] are better suited to both skinning up and digging pits, and we don't have to be in each other's way with the amount of space back there. I know the snowpack is quite stable at the moment, and again I don't want to shame anyone/I'm happy to accept criticism as we are all learning, but i felt the need to speak up as I think we have an obligation to keep each other safe out there. That being said I hope we all had great turns and it's cool to see so many people getting after it in the backcountry.

Good day of skiing. Skied steep sections with confidence having a good pit and column test.

Scoured on unsheltered northen ALP/TL aspects, eg. tailgunner. Sheltered NE aspects TL/BTL was ~20cm of blower pow. Multiple CTM 18 down, on a storm interface. 1 CT28 RP down 38.

Hit the south side of east peak. Summit was very wind affected from south/south westerly winds. Wanted a quick day so hit south side. North side looks like it had mild-mod winds slab. It was hit by some sledders at about 2100m with no signs of avalanche. Snow was better on north side than south side, often 10-16cm of powder on north side. Above 2200m south side was very wind affected with hard snow and very little penetration by skis. Below 2200m we found good skiing and ~10cm of powder. Really fun. Few sharks were hit. No signs at all of instability on our run. Steepest section was about 35-40 degrees.

Two short laps on East Peak South Shoulder to brush up on our skills. Sweet conditions compared to in the resort. Good fresh snow. Windy higher up. Stayed at and below tree line. Skied south aspect slope of East Peak shoulder to LCM. Saw a couple of other groups.

Very foggy inbounds today. Toured out behind East Peak. Windy but surprisingly snowpack was not scoured as it often is. Stayed below tree line today although the Avalanche report indicated favourable conditions with low probability of a slide. Probed snow depth and found anywhere from 120 to 65 cm depth. No whumping noted and no loose slabs. Overall quite good skiing.

Multiple moderate results on two compression tests, PC down 10-15cm above a melt freeze crust down 25cm + - North aspect was extremely wind affected with lots of wind load along the ridge.

Hiked up East Peak. Visibility on peak pretty limited, so opted for ski down to the cliff chair. First 50 m pretty wind affected and hard packed. Snow conditions improved as I went.

Just over 1m of snow. Compact snow 0-45cm, no finger penetration. Multiple crust layers 45-60cm, fist went right through. 60-105cm unconsolidated snow. Compression test wrist: collapse through crust layer on tap 8. Compression test straight elbow: collapse through trust layer on tap 3. Good, casual and fin ride through trees. Obstacles covered. Just a couple blind holes where baby spruces are getting going.

Quick skin up east peak today, quite wind effected on NE aspects but we dropped down on the back side and there was some good skiing to be found. Sluffing on the lee slope. Hand shear showed pretty prominent crust down about 30ish.

100cm HS Several weak layers observed at 10cm, 30cm and 40cm. 30cm layer seemed the most concerning and was pencil hard melt freeze crust. The bottom 60cm is consolidated and stable. Overall, I did not see anything in the snowpack of significant concern.

Dug a pit at top of line. Top 30cm of snow including the crust broke off when cutting the column. Test failed on a layer ~100cm down on 5th hit from elbow. Decided to turn around and ski resort

2 laps off the back of big white today, stopping once it got too warm. Snow felt stable but sluff was heavy and getting bigger through the day. Dug a small pit down to crust and stopped there as it was to much work to dig though. Facets present on top of crust. No results from compression test.

Very wind affected towards the weather station Stayed away from east facing aspects, rode mainly on south/south east facing aspects Followed ridge line down, continued onto chix dig it Great snow conditions! Did not trigger anything/no indication of any slides

This avi released on a convex surface that looked wind loaded as I was traversing across. Propagated about 50m between two trees and slid maybe 50-70m into a tree line.

Went riding on east peak today, Didn't dig a pit due to variable snow conditions on almost all different aspects that we rode. Very wind affected and poor quality riding at the top. Ski cut all different slopes that we rode and found the snow pack to be stable at the top no whumpfing or shooting cracks. Best riding was eastern shoulder mid slope and lower. At the very bottom of our first run we ended up releasing a small slab that ran for half the slope as pictured in pic 2. Thankfully the face had a lower angle aspect that we were able to descend with no reactivity. After that small scare we ended up riding conservative terrain in mostly mellow trees on the eastern shoulder.

Skinned up east peak's eastern shoulder doing our best to stay out of the wind and came down via the east peak/cliff col. The ridgeline is super wind affected as usual, and things are especially crusty on top. Treeline and below the snow quality is fantastic and good laps can be found north aspect off the eastern shoulder into smokers bowl. Above the treeline/around the peak things are still pretty thin and a few rocks still poking out. If you can manage the skin up and over the top of east peak and back via the col, this is a much nicer ride out than trying to hit the black forest parking lot. With the available slope and elevation you can easily get back the the cliff chair (with no RFID gates) and take a chair bump to the top of big white inbounds terrain.

Parked at 1500 m, tredged a 5 km skin track through virgin powder off the Okanagan Falls FSR through forest roads and cut blocks to reach mellow wooded terrain at 1750 m. Continued skinning into sparse trees to 1950m. Observed variable snowpack conditions the entire way up, primarily 20-40 cm soft powder on top of wind affected layer, with the powder layer beginning to consolidate into slab as temperatures rose above zero during the day. Skied south facing slope. Snowpack depth around 120-130 cm at the cutblock interface. Lots of windblown powder stashes in wooded areas. No signs of any activity, attempts to test snowpack integrity yielded negative results. Fresh cougar tracks at 1500 m. Ultimately it's a shame this area doesn't get more traffic, vast opportunity for treeline and tree skiing, with alpine conditions awaiting those bold to skin far enough...

Skied the backside of Gem Lake. Ski conditions were amazing. Deep albeit slightly heavy pow with maybe 20cm of fresh from the recent storm. Triggered a couple of small slabs in wind affected areas in steep and convex terrain. Size 0.5 max. Nothing that we observed was really big enough to wipe someone off their feet but these slabs might have gotten bigger with the afternoon snow and could be bigger in isolated pockets/above unsupported features. Crown depth was 5-10 cm, 5 ish m wide, and ran 5 m tops. Triggered while skiing so didn’t investigate further. First slide was an intentional ski cut at the top and the second was accidental mid way down. Proceed to ski Silverstar without issue after this. Medium strength winds at ridge tops with a few stronger gusts. Sporadic snowfall throughout the day and was snowing s3 at the parking lot around 3:30. Probably 5-7 cm accumulation throughout the day.

15 cm of new snow overnight, snow was semi heavy but riding conditions were still really good with the new snow. Avalanche conditions seemed pretty solid with the new snow, we stuck with mellow anchored slopes in the morning and progressed to riding some steeper open areas as the day went on and confidence increased. No signs of avalanche conditions except for some short (1m>) shooting cracks while breaking trail.

A beautiful day to hike around in the trees. A lot of new snow in the past few days that we desperately needed, therefore we decided to stick to sheltered areas. 30* slope E facing Pit test showed two results, and many layers were present. Rain crust is now down about 80cm, and below that is still faceted crystals which are 1.5mm in size, still not quite bonded with the bed surface. First result was CTM13 @25 cm down, which is in line with the new storm snow. Second (after I cleared the debris) was CTH22 @70 cm down, planar break.

Took a walk out behind East Peak on Dec 19. Checking out conditions for future ski tours. We crossed the typical wind scoured slope in that area but once around the corner just to skier’s right of Smokers we found some nice turns. Snow was somewhat wind and temperature compressed but very skiable. Didn’t venture too high given the wind and visibility. There was no evidence of sloughing or slide activity and we experienced no whumping.

With the blessing of improved weather I headed behind Big White for the first time this season. Clear with light ridge wind NE in the AM followed by much stronger winds N in the afternoon. Conditions for skiing are OK. The rain crust is ~25-40cm below with low density snow on top of this layer and approx 3cm of high density heavier snow to the surface. The snowpack is solid. No results on the rain layer. Small wind slabs in especially wind loaded pockets. Overall largely safe conditions to do some exploring. We need more snow. Very much early session conditions similar to what we see in mid November with sharks hiding just a few cm below the surface. East Peak is largely unskiable until we receive at least another 25cm. Found some very fresh mountain lion tracks.

Skinned up directly above Gem lift and skied down skiers right of Area 51. No wind slabs noted. Mild sloughing on the ski down to valley bottom. Skinned across the valley to the north facing slope below the summit of BW and up to tree line. Slope above tree line was wind scoured across the slope but relatively unaffected below tree line with no evidence of wind slabs. We enjoyed three creamy smooth runs to valley bottom. Snowpack was well consolidated. No whumping or cracks were observed in any location we skinned or skied. As the light faded due to fog and the wind picked up, we bugged out along Pink.

ECTN11 down 22 on storm snow Feb 20th

Firm and icy along ridge between Big White and east peak. And on skin up to east peak, particularly on the NW aspect. Amazing riding conditions on east and south slopes. Avalanche report noted problem of wind slab on all but W / SW slopes

Surprisingly good conditions behind the Gem and points north today in the ecological reserve. Snowpack was wind affected at ridge top but below ridge top skiing exceeded expectations with roughly 10-20 cms of new snow deposited in the past few days. Stability was excellent.

Wind slab 4-8cm depth found in pockets of Lee loaded terrain

Little slack country mission today. Skied the east ridge outside big white and found some VERY wind affected conditions coming down the ridge. Better inside the bowl but with the winds cross loading most of the area over the past few days we kept things mellow. On lap number two we skinned our way back up the ridge and noticed some serious crack propagation on a pretty protected south-east facing aspect. Found our poles ripping out chunks of wind slab sitting on some leftover surface hoar from last week. Slope angles were sub 30 degrees but spooky none the less. Finished the day by skiing out the valley towards black forrest for some lovely turns below the tree line.