Wheaton

Skied up Mt Anderson for some views. Didn't venture onto any slopes really. Thought about it but the snowpack is too shallow and faceted. A quick column test on an E facing slope confirmed this and failed from cutting. W facing slope had the same issue. Fun ski down the road anyhow.

With uncertainty around the opening of the road we decided to try to ski a line off Mount Wheaton down Annie Lake Road. 1 suggestion. DONT. There is a crust up to 1300m where we turned around. Below that there is either a 4 finger slab (20-30cm deep) on facets or only facets. HS was 50-70cm throughout. Significant snow transport visible at ridge top

Map not working to put in location Temperature at start (8am) was -4 11am temp was 2 degree Dug 2 south facing pits on 28-34 degree aspects (similar to objective) and saw complete planar failures at CTE3 and ECTE2. Thus did a mellow valley ski

Similar to conditions reported by the AvCan field team: Snow stayed cooler than in past days, though was still moist and in some cases unsupportive on slopes over 30 degrees. Still lots of life left in sheltered and north-facing couloirs in the Wheaton.

The road into tally ho is very bumpy. Once we got into the zone there was lots of good riding to be had. It was about 35cm ski pen breaking trail in trees up to tally ho. We did a hasty pit (@ 1350m) and had SP down 20cm while cutting. It broke below a 5cm thick crust, which was sitting on sugary facets. We didn’t observe shooting cracks or any new avalanches while in the zone. We stuck to mellow slopes and enjoyed some good turns down tally ho. Triggered some isolated wind slabs <5cm around 1500m while coming down. Temps were up to -4. Moderate winds from south at the top. On the return sled we observed some new avalanches on SE slopes initiated with loose avalanches off steep slopes which triggered some slabs down lower. Up to size 1.5.

Window shopping new lines from the truck is always a fun way to start the day! With the pass closed last minute we opted to do an exploratory mission in the Wheaton valley. This zone was chosen for its aspect, slope angle, recent avalanche conditions and group ablities. The apspect provided shelter from the prevailing winds. Slope angle looked optimal for the group as 2 of 4 were brand new to Splitboarding. Recent avy contions indicated a unstable snow pack in the alpine so this allowed us to avoid that expousre. Plus the zone provided 1500ft of beautifully gladed tree skiing at the top with a slope angle of around 36deg ish.(we chose the more mellow side but there is an option to have steeper tree skiing) Around 700ft of low angle fun riding for the bottem section. For a total of around 2400ft of down. We did use a sled to get us close but not necessary. Total distance was close to 8km round trip. Climbed up to 4200ft, snow above tree line has seen significant wind effect causing 2-5" thick wind slab. Shooting cracks seen on this small top layer. Below tree line snow is very much uneffected. (Some might even say excellent)? I will be adding this to my list of fun tree skiing zones! Forsure!

Summary of obs from an AST day: We worked up the drainage between Mt Wheaton and Tally-Ho, finding mostly bottomless facets, trending to unreactive wind slab above about 1100m. A warm but mostly overcast day reduced concerns of solar triggering on alpine slopes above us. Visibility was good and no recent avalanches were observed.

Nice walk up mount Wheaton today, with broken skies in the morning, around 12 the wind started picking up, into the strong range at ridge top. New windslabs were developing as we boot packed and scrambled on the ridge. Used a belay protected ski cut to enter steep terrain and got multiple windslabs to go to size 1.5 Skiing was heavy but very good. Snow depth in sheltered areas was 150cm

Good conditions for quick travel, generally poor skiing with some isolated pockets of good snow below treeline. Lots of wind in the Wheaton over the last week. Temps were -25 in the morning and -6 at 4pm. Observed some small size 1 natural avalanches on solar aspects where terrain was steep and snowpack thin.

A whooped out sled trail into the Tally Ho zone - still some open water in places. We saw more evidence of a natural avalanche cycle from the last storm. Above 1000m there’s widespread wind effect. We stayed away from wind loaded alpine features that looked like windslabs today. In sheltered terrain and meadows there’s 20-30cm of storm snow and an average snowpack depth of 110cm. Boot pen was up to 35cm in some areas. The sledding in the meadows was great - still plenty of powder to get after. Get it wrong and you can still punch through into the sugary facets at the bottom of the snowpack! Weather wise; the inversion continues. It was -16c at the staging area and -4c up in the meadows. With clear skies the sun was packing a punch and as a result It looked like we had a natural avalanche cycle on steep rocky southeast aspects during the afternoon.

A slight inversion in the Wheaton today -13c/-7c with clear skies and light variable winds. Old avalanches from the recent storm can be seen on all aspects. On average size 2 -2.5 starting mid-track and running into tree line. The snowpack is 100cm in the alpine and similar at tree line with 20cm of new snow from the last storm. Wind effect was widespread above 1000m and varied from a thin wind skin to new windslab. We had some good whumphs on new windslabs at tree line so we avoided larger wind loaded features. Smaller features that we tested were not reactive to ski cuts. There were isolated pockets of new surface hoar in sheltered areas in the valley. A great day for a walk in the mountains but the wind effect made for so so skiing. Even the new storm snow that the wind hadn’t found was heavy.

Good skiing in Wheaton Valley on Northeast slope sheltered from the wind. Ski pen at treeline was ~10 cm, 30 cm in trees. Southerly winds increased to moderate/strong in the afternoon. Some shooting cracks observed on storm layer, but didn't really have a surface to slide on.

A ski tour of the Mt Anderson area revealed a variety of snowpacks. N/NW aspects are blown in and holding decent snow and a fairly supportive snowpack for this area. Lower Alpine and Treeline zones boasted fairly good skiing in buckle top pow. South aspects are more thin and scoured and we had to use avalanche paths filled with old debris to get a top to bottom run without touching down on rocks. The old debris was softening with powder on top and skied better than expected. We were cautious of paths that held old wind slabs in their start zones and chose to duck in lower down in the runs, below the obvious wind lenses. We felt comfortable stepping out into steeper avalanche terrain today after a fairly good stretch of static, cold weather. Being able to ski in the Wheaton on a supportive snowpack is a treat!

TallyHo has seem some traffic in the last number of days as is evidence by the whoop-di-doos on the trail in. We found powder shots between old tracks and managed to tag a few summits today in the area. HS is 75-100cm and variably distributed in the Alpine. Sled cuts on small, wind loaded features produced no results though we did stay clear of some of the fatter, steeper, wind loaded slopes in the area. Evidence of previous avalanches up to size 2+ in cross loaded alpine features. These were likely from the Dec 2 warming/storm. The melt freeze crust goes up to about 1400m and the new snow seems to be bonding well to it. Of note was wide spread surface hoar development. It will be interesting to see how much of it survives long enough to be buried and become a problem layer.

shallow faceted snow pack. Variable depth - average 25 cm but many wind blown features and drifts 1 metre plus. Weather station offline.

Photos tell the story: thin coverage out in the Wheaton. We saw one old slide, now well blown over. Most paths below threshold for avalanches. Glad we didn’t bring the skis!

Wheaton obs. Air temp -8.5, Snow Temp -5. Below treeline total height of snow is 50cm. No crust evident. No new activity observed - but minimal visibility.

Wheaton recon. Minimal snow makes access to alpine terrain extremely challenging (see attached photo). What snow there is is generally extremely wind affected - a surface ice crust is, in places, supportive of snowmobile weight. Beneath this the snowpack is entirely composed of 3-5mm facets. Below treeline there is enough snow, much of it high quality and not wind affected, to allow for easy and, (in places) fun exploring. Spectacular terrain.