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We've been in Rogers Pass the last couple of days.
At about 11 am today we saw a size 3 run off the northeast ridge of Young's Peak (east of the Forever Young couloir). This initiated on a steep convex roll on the glacier which had no toe support and ran down the large rock cliffs below. The fracture line was well over a meter deep and mirrored a fracture line from an avalanche that had run 3 weeks ago on a slope directly adjacent. There was no apparent trigger as it was -15 and the wind was dying down and had been scouring the slope rather than loading it. I've been skiing within 20 km of this spot pretty much every day for the past 24 days and this is the only avalanche of this magnitude that I've seen since the big cycle 3 weeks ago.
Otherwise we have seen no significant instabilities in the terrain we have been skiing - sheltered alpine and treeline terrain in the low- to mid-30 degrees and steeper slopes below treeline. We saw a few natural and skier triggered windslabs in crossloaded terrain today, but if you go where the skiing is good and not wind affected there doesn't seem to be avalanche issues other than the normal caution required.
For the past couple of weeks we have been feeling that the regular ski lines are reasonably stable but have been staying off of and away from large, steep and complex alpine features and cornices. The avalanche on Youngs helped confirm that we are going to keep doing so for the time being.
There is a lot of good skiing out there right now!
Mark Klassen Mountain Guide
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