West Purcell

Deep trail breaking with 25-30cm of fairly low density new snow, which made for excellent skiing. Skied mellow slopes and trees. No sign of new avalanche activity in the Jumbo drainage. Even though we were mostly in the shade the sun sure packs a punch this time of year.

50 cm of soft snow made for really good riding in wind-sheltered areas. No notable layers or test results in the upper snowpack. Total depths at treeline ranged from 150 to 180 cm, with some softer faceted snow near the ground. There was some blowing snow along ridges, but we didn't see any new avalanches.

40 cm of recent snow was starting to settle and feel heavy. Total snow depth at 1900 m was 150 cm. Sled rutschblock got a whole block result on a 50 cm deep facet on crust layer. No new avalanches observed.

Toured up to around 2150m with no cracking or whumpfing. Dug a snowpit at 1960 m and didn't get any alarming results. We didn't find the surface hoar in our location but the November facets were large and easy to see! There was 130 cm where we dug but it seemed to get significantly deeper above that. Mostly calm, with the odd light gust at our elevation. No natural avalanches seen but we didn't have great visibility.

We headed out with a plan to get up into the alpine but quickly had to change plans. The cold temps and poor vis meant we spent the day sledding in the trees near the warming hut. There was enough soft snow to get it on edge in lee areas, so around 10-15 cm. The wind was moving snow at all elevations, with occasional drifts in the trees and scouring back to old tracks in open areas. Decent riding considering how little snow we've had

No recent avalanches observed during 3 days around Dave White Hut, but one large older slabs in steep southeast alpine terrain and some small sluffs under sun-exposed cliffs. A mix of surface conditions with sun crusts, wind effect, and fast shallow powder. Probing on Catamount found typical depths of 130 to 160 cm.

Great skiing at Jumbo the last 3 days and a surprising lack of reactivity where we travelled. We dug profiles on west and east aspects at TL on Jan 3rd (see snowpack tab). Could see some previous natural activity on distant alpine slopes but nothing near the cabin. We mostly skied the east side with lots of smaller features up to 40 degrees in slope but avoided larger/more committing terrain due to uncertainty with the deep/persistent problems. Weather was a mix of sun and clouds with mostly light winds. Alpine was a bit wind affected from previous winds but everything lower was hero snow!

Dec 22-26 ski touring out of McMurdo hut. Still low coverage BTL but manageable/filling in, bushy and a few open creek holes on the exits. NW aspects at TL loaded nicely and skied beautifully! Avoided steeper features where rocks still loom and faceted snowpack means even the more deeply buried ones grab you! Dug a pit Dec 23 (N aspect ~1900m -17deg) found planar surfaces between faceted midpack (suspected pwls) down ~20cm and 40cm. No significant result on CT or ECT. Very touchy storm slab Dec 24 (numerous skier remote triggers) but nothing running far on facets. Avoided big convex / unsupported features. Dec 25 Warm temps (-5 at hut) and a break in the snowfall (saw some sun!), storm slab settled out nicely. Wind slab on specific alpine features, shooting cracks, but again nothing running on facets below. Dec 26 Warm temps (0deg at 2000m), mod winds and steady snowfall all day, great deep (bottomless) pow laps in the trees. Huge transformation in conditions over 5 days!

Early season conditions. Road drivable with 4x4 to 1800m (the bridge) though this will likely change with the next storm. 50 cm of well settled snow on the glacier with slight wind effect. Crevasses still wide open as expected. Ski quality excellent for October.

4 days in Forster Creek area. Warm weather, terrible skiing on all aspects. Snow was heavily wind and sun affected. No sign of recent avalanche activity. Probed 270-300cms over the ice on the catamount, no saggy areas or visible crevasses.

We rolled into town at the start of a trip with just enough time to get up to Forster Cabin. We started familiarizing ourselves with the local snowpack and played around in the meadows a little bit. It was snowing and blowing the whole time we were up there. When we looked up to the ridges around us, we could see the wind moving the new snow, and knocking it off the trees, so we were happy to stay out avalanche terrain today. Not a very exciting report, but the riding in the meadows was fun, 10-25 of soft new snow was sitting on top of old, supportive snow and tracks. The wind was blowing across the meadow and smoothing out the surface and filling in our tracks. If we had been on anything other than flat terrain, we definitely would have been watching out for reactive windslabs.

Spent Thursday night at Jumbo Pass. We received 10cm of new snow overnight which was fairly well bonded to the moist surface on sun exposed aspects. It skied well while dry but by about 10 am anything sun exposed turned moist and started roller balling. On north aspects there was no noticeable crust below the new snow and the new snow stayed dry. There was some power sluffing on steep north facing terrain on Bastille Peak (see photo).

About 15cm of new snow in Forster basin when we arrived and another 12cm fell throughout the day. Snowing S2 most of the day. Gusty at tree line. We skied the tighter trees above Dave White hut and did not go into the open trees above. On a steep roll at tree line had a sz 1 Sa, no involvement, 30 cm deep, soft slab on crust. At 2100 m on a S asp found wet grains below the 1 inch thick crust.

We rode mellow slopes and saw many tracks in steeper terrain. The snow surface stayed dry above around 1400 m. The wind was light to moderate and transported snow on ridgetops. Cornices were big and looming above southerly slopes. We saw an old wind slab avalanche of size 2 below a ridge with a cornice. We didn't see any fresh avalanche activity.

We just had three days of awesome skiing at Jumbo Cabin (Jan 11-13), and some very spicy avalanche conditions on Wednesday the 13th. While skinning up on Monday we observed surface hoar at TL and BTL, mostly in open areas. This was mostly around sz 3, but up to sz 15 in isolated areas at TL. We dug a profile Monday afternoon (see snowpack tab). This showed a right-side up, well settled snowpack, with no weak layers of concern. It snowed 5 to 10cm throughout the day on Tuesday with moderate SW winds. We avoided the alpine due to poor vis and wind. We skied steep lines (up to 40 degrees) on east and SW aspects at treeline and observed no signs of instability. There was evidence of natural activity from some of the larger East facing paths below the cabin, which looked around a week old. Ski quality was excellent on Tuesday with ski pen of around 30cm. On Tuesday night it got very stormy and windy. We could hear the wind howling all night and awoke on Wednesday to a full on blizzard. Snow was blowing in all directions but wind was primarily from the west. It was difficult to tell how much snow had fallen with all the drifting but an estimate is 20-30cm overnight. Ski quality was terrible above 2200m with all the wind affect but amazing deep powder in the trees below 2200m. Storm slabs were very touchy. Lots of cracking and every convexity/pillow we skied on was sliding around 20cm deep. Failure surface appeared to be stellars sz 2-3. We also observed lots of natural activity (see avalanche tab). Around 1900m ski quality deteriorated again due to tree bombs everywhere. There were also a lot of blow down. When we returned to the sled it was buried under 30cm of snow. That was one crazy storm. Haven't experienced a blizzard/winds like that since leaving New Zealand!

Sunday was a classic stormy day out at Jumbo. We parked at Earl Grey and sledded the remaining 10km or so and then skinned up the summer trail. At treeline there was 60cm on top of the November 5 crust and HS of 130cm. Some quick hand shears gave results, sliding on facets on the November crust. We also jumped on a small test slope/pillow which produced cracking/propagation across the slope. We decided to keep it conservative and skied mellow glades and pillows. I ski cut a small convexity and remote triggered a slab down 60cm from 2-3m away which further reinforced our decisions to play it safe. The skiing was amazing with 60cm of blower pow. Just a shame we couldn't fully enjoy it on some steeper slopes! The ski back to the sled was surprisingly good for this time of year. Definitely need to be on the lookout for logs etc but I made it down with only mildly scratched bases. Overall a great day out with some amazing early season pow turns. It was good to get some info on the snowpack. Stay safe out there!

Test Profile TL @ 2050m, Aspect- N, Wind- S, SW. Sky- OVC-OBS Precip- S1. HS 120cm STM (SP) down 60 on FC 3mm Comments: Above Nov 5 MFcr CTV (SC) down 10 on PP CTE 6 (SC) down 40 on DF ECTX Comments: Nov 5 MFcr complex is 10cm thick, down 60cm.

Spent 4 days Ski touring in and around the Jumbo cabin. The first 2 days were sunny and great weather, -3 at the cabin and not much change in in the alpine. Was significantly warmer below tree line. the sun had some heat to it and was creating crust on solar aspects. Over night on the 22-23 saw significant surface hoar growth up to 5 mm between 1900-2200m in sheltered areas. During the evening of the 22 overnight into the morning of the 24th there was up to 30 cm of fresh snow with strong to extreme winds creating touchy wide spread wind slab. On the ski out on saturday any convex roll on the ski out was sensitive to skier traffic, we remote trigger multiple size 0.5-1 not running far or fast. Attached is a photo of the

5-15 cm Hst 2500m elev, no slabs from skiing or high marking. Under new snow there is Firm double wind slab 10cm thick or variable with facets under. No recent naturals from the weekend. Thursday and friday had SW wind then switch to light North. -17 high on saturday and clear skis. Haven't seen newsurface hoar yet. Goood skiing, hero sledding, no slabbing. Rode steep couloirs, convexities and pillows. Observed extreme simultaneous highmarking, sledding over crevasse bridges and into non motorized closures with no fucks given.

We skied around the International Basin Jan 25-28. Overall the weather was sunny, with Saturday being a very warm day, and total new snow for the weekend was around 10 cm. Saturday the sun was blasting southern aspects, creating a little bit of sun crust on steep vertical south-facing features. Saturday night winds very strong and gusty. On Sunday we observed a natural size 1.5 avalanche on a steep wind-loaded north-facing slope. We dug pits each day with similar results. We found a weak layer consistently around 20-40 cm down, giving results in the medium to hard range in compression tests. We also found the basal facet layer next to the ground at one of our pits, at 120 cm, on a southern aspect. It was rotten. The other pits were not deep enough to observe that layer. Skiing conditions were good to very good except for Sunday when the wind had created a crust in the alpine. Tree skiing was consistently good and conditions were stable, although we did not venture into very steep terrain.

Remote triggered 2.5 at ridge top, 1 to 2 meter crown ran almost to ground. Took some large trees with it. Everybody okay to shred another day!

Involved in a sizable avalanche. Able to pull airbag, and kept my head afloat. Very luck to talk about it today. Hard, compact, slabs. Respect the mountain and the mountain will respect you.