[MCR] Selkirk Mountains, Kootenay Pass

Subject: [MCR] Selkirk Mountains, Kootenay Pass
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:46:46 -0800
After two days of mild, wet weather in Nelson, I was expecting slushy conditions in Kootenay Pass today. It was mild, but the skiing was great. At the highway elevation about 35cm of snow (and some rain) accumulated during the past storm.

We toured around Baldy Rocks and The Crags and made ski runs on southeastern and southern aspects through an elevation range of 2200m to 1800m. We dug two hasty pits on different aspects at 2100m. The Dec 29 surface hoar was found down 70cm on the western aspect and reacted to moderate to hard compression tests with planar shears. On the southeastern aspect the Dec 29 crust (no surface hoar) was down 35cm and produced no results. On both aspects the storm snow was reacting to moderate compression tests with progressive failures. We skied mostly moderate terrain, but ski cutting steeper convex rolls produced only sloughing. There was no evidence of recent avalanche activity although there was some snowballing on the lower southern aspects.

There seemed to be a 'stepped' temperature change around the 2000m level. Below this elevation the temperature was near freezing, above the temperature was -3. The sky was overcast most of the day with a brief sun appearance mid-day. Later, a system moved in and snow was falling when we got back to the car at 3:30PM. At the lower elevations the snow was moist. While skinning up from the bottom of our runs, the snow was starting to ball up under our skis.

Craig Hollinger,
ACMG Assistant Ski Guide.
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