Selkirk Mountains - Rogers
Pass - Hermit Meadows - Swiss Glacier area - Feb.4-08
Skied in the alpine above Hermit Meadows via the Hermit
trail today.
Weather started out with broken skies and cold temps (-13.0)
with the clouds thickening by the later afternoon.
Of note today was the layer of stellars that was coating the
surface – I didn’t see any surface hoar – the stellars may
make for an interesting bond with the next forecasted snowfalls.
Some older small slab avalanches seen but they looked to
have occurred during the tail end of the last system a few days ago –
several Compression tests in a variety of alpine locations showed similar results
between location – a CTM RP (Resistant Planar quality of shear means it
didn’t pop off the column or fail in a clean manner) down @35 below a
strong windslab then a harder shear down @ 50 also with a RP type of shear. The
20-30cm. of fist snow overtop the windslab was starting to form a bit of a soft
slab but appeared reasonably bonded to the old windslab.
I started writing this last night and right now it is
snowing in Revelstoke and it looks like another snowy week ahead so keep your
heads up and asses as you go.
Cheers,
Scott Davis
Mountain Guide