[MCR] Monashee Mountains

Here is some info from the Monashee Mountains @ 30 min. west of Revelstoke and 30 km. North of the Trans Canada highway from Nov.30/07.

 

I spent the day with several other guides poking around this part of the Monashees as we prepared to teach an ACMG Guide Training course and thought this may be useful information for people skiing close to this area (such as Gorge Ck. etc.)

 

Profiles showed a range of snowpack depth between 200cm. at 1900m. and 100cm. once you got down to 1400m.

 

We found surface hoar crystals and large new snow crystals on the surface and the November 24th interface was down @ 35-40cm. and we saw everything from large preserved new snow crystals (5-6mm) - some surface hoar (5mm.) and a suncrust at this interface. Deeper down we found a crust that had a weak layer below it @ 40cm. from the ground

 

The Novemeber 24th layer reacted to shovel compression tests in the easy to moderate range - but due to the lack of cohesion in the snow it did not react to ski cutting other than some cracking here and there. The deeper crust produced hard results below the crust. Even though it didn't react to ski cutting we had little confidence in it and skiied quite conservatively (remember we are a bunch of old guides and want to keep it that way).

 

Temps were cold (-20 Celsius) under clear skies with no real wind.

 

No recent avalanche activity other than loose snow sluffs out of steeper terrain - some old slabs @ 30-40cm. thick are visible, they look as though they occured during the last storm event.

 

All that is about to change if the forecast weather even comes close to what they are calling for in terms of snowfall and warming temperatures - so keep alert as the next storm hits as we are likely to see a fairly extensive avalanche cycle associated with it.

 

Scott Davis

Mountain Guide

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