Just back from a week up at the Campbell Icefields Chalet north-east of Golden,
B.C. Dec 31-Jan 7. A great place to spend new years.
Quite a stormy week with 40-60cm of new snow throughout the week (35cm of which
fell on the evening of Jan 5). Only 2 days of weather good enough to go
explore
in the high country (Jan 2 & 7), the rest of the days were spent close to
treeline so we could see something. Fog, fog and more fog was the theme of the
week... and snow!
We had 2 skier controlled avalanches (size 1.0) on convex south facing alpine
terrain during the snow and wind storm on the 5th, snow that had any wind
effect
at all was reacting very easily with 15-20 degree slopes cracking and moving
slightly underfoot (some fractures travelling up to 15m). This reactivity
settled out quickly and the snowpack on the 6th was considerably more stable.
No natural activity was observed at all during the week. Wind effect was
restricted to alpine terrain only.
Deeper down in the snowpack (around 50cm from the surface) we found the mid
December facet layer, which in this particular area was rounding out well and
sheers were in the moderate range with a resistent fracture character (CTM 15
RP). The november facet/crust layer was present around 150cm from the surface
with hard, sudden fractures present (CTH 23 RP on SC size 2.0). There was, on
average, around 2m of snow on the ground at treeline, up to 220cm probed on the
Campbell Icefields proper.
We skied some rather committing terrain during the week but it was entirely on
slopes that had previously avalanched during the Dec 24 event. We turned away
from one large north facing slope at 2500m (around 37degrees) during the week
due to the shears in the snowpack, lack of past natural activity on the slope
and a rather committing kick turn on the slope over a rather large drop. In
general we were cautious with our terrain decisions throughout the week if the
slope had no evidence of previous natural activity.
When we left on the 7th I was calling the avalanche danger C/M/L with caution
in
lee terrain.
Ian Tomm
Assistant Ski Guide
Canadian Avalanche Association
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