| Drove from Banff to Revelstoke last night March 12, then came into the Valkyr Range in the southern Selkirks today, March 13 (Arrow Lakes region, south of Nakusp). It looks like it rained to mountain top at least a bit in all the ranges.
A major avalanche cycle that became obvious beginning in the Field area. Most of the ice routes have major debris over them. The routes themselves look grey and dirty. A large cycle also occurred at higher elevations in the Van Horne range west of Field, with climax avalanches running to the bottom of the runouts.
Approaching Rogers Pass the cycle continued. Good timing on the control runs by the avalanche crew there, dozens of avalanches size 2 - 3 running to within a few meters of the road but I didn't see any debris that hit the road until past the BC Hiways sheds west of the Pass where three deposits had been cleared by the ploughs. All aspects and elevations looked affected.
Skied in an elevation range of 1800 - 2400 m today. A melt freeze crust of varying thickness and strength lies on all aspects and elevations. In some places it carries a skier and in some places not. Regardless, this crust holds everything together and we rated avalanche danger as Low in all areas. A max temp of -4 at 2100m did not change things at all, although there were a few places that were warmed by solar radiation a bit this did not break the crusts down. A cold west wind kept things cool.
During the storm several loose snow and slab avalanches had run in this area on east and north aspects in the alpine, to size 2.
Ski quality...well you can guess. The shovel was out trail building today. Bring your ski crampons! Mark Klassen Mountain Guide |