[MCR] Lake Louise-Bow Summit

On Friday we skied the S Face of Fairview and Saturday we skied a loop a bit north of the Bow Summit area.

Although things have a spring time feel to them we certainly are not in a full melt-freeze cycle yet. Crusts even on steep south aspects are not fully mature, they are not terribly thick yet and are breaking down quickly, often by mid-morning. On steep and rocky solar aspects there was a major avalanche cycle happening by 10 am today, with many wet loose snow avalanches to size 2, running well onto the fans. Skiing on the crusts can often be punchy even when they are frozen.

Of particular concern are steep, thin snowpack west facing slopes where we saw two size 2.5-3 avalanches that had occurred in the past 36 hours (see attached photos). This certainly would be terrain skiers would be exposing themselves to on classic springtime ski tours like Mt Hector.

On north aspects things felt good with probing, with resistance slowly increasing in the top meter of the snowpack. 

Ski quality was fair to good on solar aspects with mashed potatoes to corn to breakable warm crusts. On sheltered norths it is boot top silk. On lower angled norths where the sun has got to it a bit there are breakable crusts. 

Mark Klassen
Mountain Guide

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