[MCR] Rogers Pass, Jan 31- Feb 5

This summarry was compiled by the candidates on the ACMG Guides Training Ski Touring course based in Rogers Pass from January 31- Feb 6.

Places we skied  

Cheops Shoulder, Hermit area- Hermit slide path, Little Sifton Traverse, Bonney Glacier, Illecilewaet Glacier to Perley Rock, Asulkan Pass, Sapphire Col, Lily Glacier, and the Dome Col.  Elevation range skied was between 1100 and 2700 meters.

 

Weather

30-40cm of low-density snow fell earlier in the week.  There was little to no winds and mainly cloudy with a few sunny breaks.  Temperatures were between +0.5 to -9 throughout the week with the freezing level lowering to valley bottom overnight and rising to 1200-1400m during the day.

 

Snowpack

The storm snow has generally remained light/low density.  For the most part this snow has seen little wind affect.  Exceptions to this are isolated katabatic (downflow) wind slabs, and some minor wind affected areas at ridgetop in the high alpine.

 

There are currently 3 buried surface hoar layers of concern.   The Jan 30th surface hoar is 20-25cm down, the Jan 24th 30-40cm down, and the Dec 29 layer 80-125cm down.  Snow stability tests gave the most results on the Jan 24th layer.  This layer was observed as high as 2400m.  The Dec 29th layer remains a concern at treeline on slopes that have not previously avalanched, and produced moderate to no results in various test locations.

 

Snow depth on the Illecilewaet Glacier was variable from 50 to 250cm.  Snow depth on the Asulkan Glacier below Sapphire Col was 250-300cm.  Snow depth on the   Bonney Glacier was 300+cm. 

 

Ski quality  

There was great skiing in all areas even over old ski tracks.  Of note is the moist snow below 1600m (mainly in the afternoon), although most nights this moist snow did dry out with cooling temps and no new temperature crusts were formed.

 

Avalanche Activity

Not only did we have great skiing, little wind, and a good accumulation of snow, we observed very little avalanche activity except for small size avalanches out of steep (+40 degree inclined) terrain mostly running as loose snow avalanches but did observe a couple isolated thin slabs to sz 1.5 in the new snow.

 

Jeff Honig

Mountain Guide

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