Waterton

Bitterly cold lap on Forum yesterday. -32 at the car and windy up high. Some wind affect from the unusual NE winds (heads up for reverse loading on SW slopes). Below ridgeline we rode mellow trees and found excellent powder to the lake.

Things felt a little spooky first thing in the morning, with high winds on the valley floor and sporadic, hollow feeling wind crusts in places as we headed up the ridge. The wind died down as we gained elevation, and the crusts became much less frequent. An ECT on the NE face just above 1900m showed no results. Finally was able to force a failure on the January crust layer (down 40cm at this location) after nearly 50 hard shoulder "taps", but even then the layer only crumbled slightly and remained fairly supportive. No planar failure or propagation occurred. Still worth being cautious in heavily wind affected areas, as this layer will have developed differently than in this somewhat sheltered test location. Skiing was excellent boot top powder, though the new snow is noticeably thinner at low elevations and you can feel the January crust about 5-10cm down. Stay high and in sheltered terrain for best results.

+20cm storm snow on top of a pretty gross crust. ECT 16 failed, but showed propagation about a 1/4 of the way through the extended column. We stuck to the fairly open trees and had an awesome run. No sluffing noticed on descent. Rode very solid.

Finally some work on the up track! Minus 7, sunshine, NO wind and 30-40cm. North wind made for a little more density but excellent conditions to about 2000 m. Above was wind affected and slabby. We encountered lots of whumpfing between 1400-1900m but no shooting cracks

Great visibility, but did see signs of a few avalanches right above the Little Prairie parking lot, heading up to Cameron Lake. Just snowshoed on the groomed trail and didn’t really venture off the path. Very sunny hovering around -2 the whole time we were out

Went in to climb lineham falls yesterday. The sheltered north aspect of this climb has preserved it in this warm spell. Ice was wet, and sometimes felt like you were being rained on, but overall ice quality was good. Climbed the left line in two 70m pitches. The right line is on its way out, but still climbable. Just Nous Deux looked to be in fat and fun shape, and the Shining also looked in. Approach is currently in challenging conditions. Prepare for wind swept, steep and icy side hilling for the first 2km. Crust was supportive to ski travel, but ski crampons are a must! Crust was not supportive to boots in many places. Avalanche hazard is low right now with many start zones scoured to ground or locked in with by the early January crust and this current warm spell. Overall a great day, get back there, the climbs are in and super fun! An FYI that quick and dirty fell this weekend due to the warm and experts choice looks to be in very poor shape.

Variable conditions. Best to stay away from open slopes due to wind slabs and ice crusts. Better snow on north east summit bench above Cameron lake, north west corner of Cameron lake to forum ridge, and live trees into forum basin. No signs of instabilities while skiing. Wind was light.

Found good conditions on Forum Ridge, staying to sheltered micro aspects where powder was less wind affected. Straying onto larger open aspects, other parties encountered breakable crust and marginal skiing. Attempts to access Summit Lake were aborted due to signs of significant sun and wind effect. No signs of instability.

We skied powder snow from Ridge Top to Lake. Up to 20cm up top and you could feel the supportive crust near the lake under about 10cm of snow. Much better conditions than expected

Extended column test showed propagation on 30th swing. Surprisingly solid snow pack for all the wild weather we’ve had. 30 cm of pretty nice snow on top of 5 cm rock solid rain crust actually made for a way nicer day than we expected.

Rowe definitely needs more snow in most spots as this weekends wind storm transported snow from SE aspects to the NE. Lots of cracking and whumpfing observed.

Excellent skiing to be had on Forum with a supportive but soft top layer. Keep the feet light as there are still a few snow sharks around, even in the deeper areas. Snowpack is the right way up and gave no indications of instability. Thin wind crust has formed on some NE aspects, and surface hoar at was observed at all elevations, primarily around 2000m on N/NE faces (out of the sun).

Great overnight freeze and 5cm fresh. Thick crust (crampons used) in thick areas on W aspect in the AM, penetrable where heat fingers exist (thin rocky areas). Observed some old wet debris and pinwheeling on solar aspects, but less then expected. Still lots of smooth snow to be had. Observed one old slab avalanche out of an extreme north aspect. Went full blue at 1PM we waited for corn to ripen on a steep SE face, dropped in shortly after 2PM with the 5cm fresh going moist and the crust softening. Quiet day in these mountains wind and avalanche wise. Crust was still solid in the shade all the way to townsite @1300m at 4:30PM. Still decent low elevation coverage for this area, only took skis off once for 10 steps whilst skiing to town.

Had a great afternoon out at Forum ridge today. Observed very solid snow conditions on the way up, with one or two very small, isolated pockets of spook. Dug a pit about 3/4 of the way up, and got no results from an ECT. Resorted to jumping on the column to try to force a reaction, and while it finally went (after 3 jumps) the failed layers did not propagate across the entire column. The ski down was excellent, there is about 30cm of fresh from the storm that is soft, but has substance. Closer to the lake there seemed to be less snow, and could feel the crust underneath.

Warm sunny day in the alpine. Alpine temps got up to +2 degrees. Previous melt freeze crust exists on all aspects below treeline and provided easy travel conditions once it softened with day time temps. Variable ski quality with day time warming. No new avalanches observed with very good visibility. Rowe bowl has some well defined hard sastrugi in it messing up the skiers right lines.

The new snow really helped things out here. We dug a pit on an east facing 35 degree slope at treeline. 155cm deep, we did an extended column and didn’t get any results. After extensive prying from the back it did fail on a later 110cms down (probably the Dec 4th crust). Very stable! Riding was mostly power with hints of crust below. Only about 15cm on storm snow on top but it rode more like 30cms. No other signs of instability or avalanches anywhere. No real wind effect either, maybe just the start of some on the ridge top but otherwise good. Clouds rolled in around 1pm but the day started sunny and temps hovered around -23 at ridge top.

About 15cm new snow on melt freeze crust. Crust was firm but somewhat breakable making for easy accent. Wind affect above 2000m. No snow transport below made for decent skiing.

A group of 6 snowshoeing to Crandell Lake, on an AST course. Stayed below treeline all day. We saw evidence of wind transport from yesterday’s wind event. Three small windslab avalanches observed in treeline terrain on the E face of Ruby Ridge. Bluebird all day with L-M winds.

Deep skinning for fantastic turns. Stayed low and out from under over head hazards. No cracks no whumpfing. Light went really flat and the snow closed in and forced me back to the truck after two runs.

Snow conditions were great. Good signs of Stability, but we did have some shooting cracks on the skin up on more wind effected south facing slopes. Stayed in the trees and away from South facing slopes.

The skin track up was super soft and unconsolidated snow, leading us to hope for great riding. Once we broke out of the main thick trees along the ridge we we met with crusty wind slabs. We wanted to go further to check out the gully feature, but stopped halfway and rode back to the trident tree, dropping there. The snow was soft underneath a 3-5cm wind crust. It rode alright, not amazing but not awful. Definitely still hidden logs and stumps in the upper half. The lower quarter of the slope was really sharky, but we were still able to ride fairly unhindered down to the lake. The lake looks mostly frozen and is probably good to walk on. Pictures show the skin track, the wind affected snow, snow halfway down, and snow right down at lake level.

Better then expected ski conditions on SE aspect of Summit Knob on Monday with little wind effect below the ridge. Eastern aspect of Summit still needs more snow before ski quality becomes good, as many hidden hazards are lurking. No avalanche activity observed in entire Cameron Lake area with our first day of good visibility this week..

Below 1800m early season conditions still exist. Very good powder skiing to be found at higher elevations in select areas. Akamina Parkway is track-set for cross country skiing from Little Prairie to Cameron Lake

Went in to check ice at Lineham Falls. Left side has a thick pillar at the base but undeveloped ice directly above. Need a week or more to solidify. The upper ice on the left side looked quite nice and starting to become blue. The right side was pouring water and the ice that was there was super wet and slushy. We got into the falls just in our boots with all new snow. Depth varying from 10-20cms.

Surprisingly good riding today on Forum Ridge. Anywhere from 5-15cms of fluffy snow on a thick but supple crust. Didn’t go further than the trident tree and our 3 meter probs was unable to reach ground when we tested for snow depth. Walked back out across the lake

Very crusty in the AM. Some steeper sections were easier to boot pack, since we didn’t bring crampons. The snow was significantly better on shaded features. By mid day things were warming up more than expected. We dug a pit at 2240m, on an east aspect. Total snow depth there was 190cm. The snowpack seemed less stratified but with far more facets than before the Feb cold snap. Definitely some very thick rotten layers in there, especially deeper down. 3 hits from the shoulder produced a sudden planar failure, 90cm down, on a thick layer of facets. With the warming and and the small chance of producing a very large avalanche, we decided against dropping into the open bowl.

Light to moderate snowfall all day. Strong winds in the alpine and on the lake - blustery. Lots of wind loading - wind slabs forming in alpine. In sheltered areas, 25 cm of soft snow on the surface. Rain crust was at 75 cm. Snow depth on lee side in pit was 250 cm. No avalanche activity.

Toured up to Vimy Peak. Crossed the foot of middle Waterton Lake and skinned up to tree line where the snow was mostly blown away. Boot packed 40 mins to the summit, temps were about -3 or so with 10-15km/h winds. Riding was wind affected and crusty up higher and then the gully feature on the way down was pretty heavy and didn’t ride well. Surprisingly little snowpack compared to other years in that area. We were able to skin back most of the way to the vehicles.

60cm storm snow on crust. failed on 14. our pit was 30 yards downslope from the top of the ridge where the tree line ends (wind affected). riding was epic

Skinned up and dug a test profile on the Eastern aspect of Forum Ridge on a warm sunny day. Rain crust is present up to 1900m and supportive to skier traffic.

Avi Hazard low at and below treeline today. Snowpack showed no signs of instability. Wind hardened crust present at all elevations on south face of Mount Rowe. Side cutting difficult or impossible at many places above 2100m, I had to boot pack it at 3 sections on my ascent, but I summited at a reasonable pace in 3 hours. Descended directly south of the peak down the drainage path. Overall it was OK, a bit crusty in places but very rideable and even enjoyable the whole way down.