Tumbler

Beautiful day to be in the mountains! The parking lots was warm and sunny and the trail in was hard and crusty. It was 4.5 degrees when we stopped for lunch at the back meadows and the sun struggled to poke out later in the day. The winds averaged from light in sheltered areas to moderate up in the alpine coming from the south, south-west. We managed to find about 10-15cm of untouched snow on N and NE facing slopes in the back as well. We hadn’t seen any recent avalanche activity on our travels or new activity as the day warmed up

Core Lodge was it's usually windy self today. We saw westerly winds transporting snow onto East to North facing slopes. As a result there were isolated pockets of wind slab below ridge crests that we stayed mindful of. But the small pockets we tested, with sleds, didn't budge. So we felt comfortable riding in big open tree line slopes where we could find some soft dry snow left over from the weekend.

Made a run in a north facing area near the Core Lodge. Any snow down low in the shade is still powder, but wherever the sun has hit it is crusty. The alpine is wind hammered, even on the lee NE facing slopes. No instability noted.

Great day out on skis today for a field day! The sun came out a lot more than forecast and we had bluebird conditions most of the day that made the -15 air temps feel much warmer. We stuck to mostly flat terrain below tree line for the day; and didn’t see any recent slab avalanches on any aspects. However we did get multiple propagation failures in our snowpit, and could ski cut small drifts and cornices that were wind exposed.

Things are waiting for a refresh at Core Lodge. Shifting winds have blasted upper elevations leaving hard surfaces and little snow to blow around. We saw no signs of new slab avalanches but a large cornice chunk has fallen testing the slope below. This is an excellent look at how the basal problems are reacting to large triggers. This cornice fall, combined with weeks of careful observation and sled cuts in small, cross loaded terrain, allowed us to cautiously set out into bigger and bigger terrain. The March sun felt good despite today’s cold temperates which, thankfully, kept the snowpack cool and dry. We stepped out into large alpine terrain and had fun putting up high marks in the sun.

We had an unexpected powder day at Core Lodge. The weather station had read only 1 cm this morning and our drive in from Tumbler had no signs of new snow. The parking lot at had 15 cm and as we moved south west into the riding zone, snow depths increased with a max around 45cm. Strong winds were redistributing snow along ridge lines so we changed our plans and dialled back to some fun powder riding in the trees.

Beautiful day and a great crew. Warmer temps and sunshine kept the smiles per minute going strong. We had +1 at the parking lot (1350M) in the AM with a total of 83cm of snow. The winds have scored the alpine and open areas pre-dominantly from the south west. No avalanches were observed on our travels to the hotdog stand. Conducted an extended column test at 1600m on an East facing (highly wind affected) aspect, resulted in ECTH26 18cm down on surface hoar (2-4mm). We also found CTM18 on some pesky facets. Air temps were hovering around -1 with a light wind from the SW.