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Finishing off another week in the Kootenays, this time in the north end of the Valhallas.
Over the week we've seen a significant wind event, a significant warming event with freezing levels to near mountain top and in the past 3 days over 40 cm of new snow.
The avalanches we've seen have been loose snow and releasing in extreme terrain and stopped at the top of the lower angled slopes below, size 1-2, failing in surface layers, windloading, warm temps and snowfall being the triggers. An exception to this was one large size 2 that started in steep skiable terrain at a treeline elevation halfway down a large avalanche track that ran into the top of the runout - temperature triggered.
We heard two whumpfs this week, both on south aspects at 2000 m. So we stayed away from south aspects.
The snowpack is a typical complex March one: three surface hoar and/or facet layers in the top meter or so, several buried suncrusts on solar aspects and buried windslabs in open treeline and alpine areas. But so far around here it has been unreactive to skiers. That seems to be an exception, many of our nearest neighbours have been reporting skier triggered avalanches on a variety of layers. We were cautious in windloaded areas, limited exposure to overhead hazard and stayed in areas that have had regular skier traffic over the winter.
Mark Klassen Mountain Guide
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