This is from yesterday (Nov.18/09) but I didn’t get a
chance to send it out last night.
Just a quick update since the last warm/windy weather event
of Monday and Tuesday (Nov.16/17).
Fortunately the rain from Tuesday morning didn’t climb
too high so the thin breakable crust that formed petered out once you had
passed the Frequent Flyer slide path just after the bridge. By the way this
path did run and cross the trail sometime Monday or early Tuesday AM (a friend
let me know that it was already down when they went up on Tuesday).
The biggest thing of note is that this last system was accompanied
by high winds so I would expect there are some significant depositions on lee
features especially in the alpine terrain.
We stuck to treeline and lower terrain on Wednesday and
found approximately 15-20cms. of low density snow had fallen since Tuesday PM –
this was sitting on a somewhat stiffer 20cm. thick layer (four fingers
resistance) that had formed during the warming and wind of Tuesday –
below that it was a little softer but still in the 4 finger range and about
another 25cms thick – so I would estimate that they had received around
40-50 cms of storm snow plus wind transport.
We did note a shear in the top 15-20 and I managed to intentionally
ski cut this weakness in one confined gully – and it didn’t go as a
loose snow sluff but instead propagated as a thin slab and cleaned out the
chute running quite fast at the bottom – though it wasn’t a deep
deposit it would have been a rude thing to hit you from behind if you were to
have just skied into it “willy nilly”.
Wednesday was much cooler than the previous 2 days with snowshowers
accompanied by moderate to strong North
West winds that calmed down later in the day.
I didn’t get out today, but I can tell you that the
next system hit here Wednesday evening and it hasn’t stopped
precipitating since with the snowline just a few hundred feet above town (saves
me doing all that shoveling) – I would hazard a guess at another 20-30cms
of snow over the last 24hrs.
I guess I would echo Dale Marcoux words from the coast –
in that I feel that this snowpack needs a little time to settle all this new
load – unfortunately (or fortunately) it looks as though the snow is
going to keep on coming – so be real out there and balance the yahoo fun
with prudent route finding and safety measures (you know one at a time and don’t
hang out below your buddy taking videos – all that stuff) –
the skiing is great so enjoy it – for a LONG TIME!
Cheers,
Scott Davis
ACMG/IFMGA Mountain Guide