[MCR] Howsons healed

Subject: [MCR] Howsons healed
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:22:37 -0800
Last week's terrible weather brought down large avalanches just in time for a CAA Level I course. I'm sure glad they weren't here to ski! Now things are cooling down and the 16 December surface hoar layer is well squashed and bridged under 30 to 60 cm of hard and heavy crusts. We are back to our usual pattern of concern about storm snow only. Of that there is a bit, and the skiing has also markedly improved. While the snowpack in the valley bottom is still a bit shallow at 175 cm, I found more than 350 cm at the toe of the Solitaire Glacier. I could not see the crevasse zones on the Loft and Burnie Glaciers, but suspect that they are now well covered. There was no widespread avalanching in the alpine, so I think that the surface hoar was destroyed there before it got buried. Good times are here again.

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Christoph Dietzfelbinger
IFMGA/ UIAGM Mountain Guide - Bear Mountaineering and the Burnie Glacier Chalet
Box 4222        Smithers, B.C.          V0J 2N0 Canada
tel. 250-847-3351/ fax 250-847-2854 info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx www.bearmountaineering.ca

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