What a change 48 hrs can make.
Saturdays storm triggered a good size avalanche cycle off Mt
Cheops (N. Aspect) into Connaught Ck., quite a few of which ran to the end of
their fans, one healthy class 3.0 for sure – all the avalanches ran
during the warm phase of the storm that occurred on Sat. PM when it rained to
1800m.
Later Saturday night and into Sunday morning, it cooled
dramatically forming a variable strength raincrust below 1800m.. Above 1800m I
would estimate 30-40cm. storm snow with snowpacks in the Balu area averaging
120cm. almost all of which feels about the same strength until you hit the
crust down about 60-80cm.
I saw a couple of shears in the storm snow down 20 and 30
cms. but they didn’t appear reactive to skiers. The snow was not light
powder, but more spongy (for lack of a better term) and carvable with fairly
shallow ski penetration (which is good at this time of year).
Weather cleared off by late afternoon and it is clear
tonight so things should just tighten up even more and I imagine the surface
crust will get stronger and may support better tomorrow. Today skiing out the
trail (which is right were the raincrust forms) was nothing short of deadly and
I can hardly recommend it to anyone. There were quite a few people up there
today (at least 20) – I was happy not to find any injured on the track
out (me included).
Cheers,
Scott Davis
Mountain Guide