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We were able to see a pretty large amount of
terrain by helicopter today in the Monashees from Revelstoke North to Hat Peak,
and in the Selkirks from Sale Mountain South to the Akokolex river.
Overall, fairly rugged conditions. Alpine, tree line, and
open terrain below tree line has been hammered pretty hard by winds from a
variety of directions, certainly the odd sheltered terrain feature held
soft looking snow, but generally VERY WIND AFFECTED. Below tree
line, very low snow amounts indeed, with only 50 cm of snow on the
ground at one spot we skied to at 5500 feet (1700m). Generally
from what we saw, both ranges appeared similar in terms of snow coverage and
wind affect.
Temperatures were between -18 and -26 which we
found at 2900meters. Alpine wind was moderate out of the North
East.
We didnt do much formal snowpack assessment, but
the upper snowpack has definately been affected by the cold arcic air.
What is not windslab, (either hard or breakable), is recrystalized, and very
slow to ski on due to the cold temperatures. Overall, the snowpack did not
feel very well settled, ie it felt shallow and faceted. We didnt perform
any tests on the early November crust, but could feel it by probing, it did not
feel very thick where we checked, and in some spots at tree line and below didnt
help at all to carry our weight over the underlying ground.
As far as avalanche activity, there were a few
isolated small sz 1 slabs in predictable spots up to 20 or 30 cm deep (suspect
thin windslabs). Of significant note however, were several large
avalanches in the size 2 to 3 range that ran on smooth, mostly glaciated
terrain above about 2800 meters. Over the course of our morning, we saw
about a half dozen of these, all in the Selkirks, however maybe we just didnt
stumble across any in the Monashees. These slabs are hard to date as it
hasnt snowed much in the last week, but certainly no older than the end of the
last snowfall mid last week. These avalanches were on terrain between 35
and 45 degrees, 80-100cm deep and up to 175meters wide. Most were in
immediate lee features, but a couple were mid slope. Aspects were due
North, and North East. Hard to say without actually playing around at the
crown lines, but we suspected these ran on the crust interface from early
November that was formed before, and buried by all the latest storm snow.
I am not sure if that crust actually went as high has these slabs which were
2800-3000 meters, most other reports show them to at least 2500 meters. It
was hard to tell 100%, but one of these avalanches (sz 2.5), looked like it
might have actually run on the summer snow interface. These avalanches
sound very similar to another few isolated slides that were reported at similar
elevations over the last week. Odd that no similar avalanches were seen in
similar terrain at slightly lower elevations?
Coverage in the high alpine on the glaciers appears
not too bad for this time of year, obviously lots of open holes and sags that
one would expect to see at this time of year.
We did manage to find a few good turns between the
windslab, and shallow burried obstacles, but then again, we did have a
helicopter and 2 mountain ranges to work with.....
Cheers
Jeff
Honig Mountain
Guide
Dave Pehowich Ski
Guide
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