On a recreational day today, skiing several drainages to the north of
Bow Summit, on the west side of the highway.
We observed strong winds and intense snow transport in the alpine.
Numerous sluffs out of cliffs to size 2, some I'm sure had cornice
chunks in them. No slabs were triggered when the avalanches hit the
fans at the base of the cliffs. Plenty of wind effect in the fans,
moraines and upper elevation westerly aspects all along the highway
although no fresh slab avalanches were seen. That doesn't mean I
trusted those types of features today.
Minimal wind effect at our high point on a ridgecrest at 2250m (7400
ft.), about a treeline elevation. 20-30 cm storm snow lay atop a
suncrust on the gladed south aspect that we skied. There was no
slabbing in the storm snow where we were, and it seemed to bond fairly
well to the crust. Good skiing, with the crust carrying a skier and
only noticeable on the belly of your turn. Any sort of wind or solar
effect on the storm snow however and this will be a different story,
this suncrust is something to watch out for in the future. There will
be avalanches on it. Deeper in the snowpack nothing jumped out at me as
problematic with repeated probing with my ski pole; it seemed a
generally homogenous snowpack but I didn't investigate too intensively.
Cheers,
Mark
Mark Klassen
Mountain Guide
mark@xxxxxxxxxxxx
www.alpinism.com
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