[MCR] Whitewater backcountry - Nelson, BC

Some obs from the past couple days:

 

13cm of new snow that fell Tues. night / Wed. morning is still providing excellent skiing in wind sheltered areas at treeline and below.  A reverse wind loading pattern had compressed the snow on N-NW aspects and reduced cornices somewhat, but yesterday winds were back to a SW flow affecting alpine elevations. 

 

I saw a fair bit of terrain the last couple days and observed some sluffing on steeps from the new snow and a few small wet surface sluffs from sun effect on steep south aspects but no slabs were visible.

 

The warm temps of last week have really settled out the snowpack with settlement cracks on all the trees.  This, combined with cooler present temps (-7C yesterday in the parking lot at 10am) had stiffened things up quite a bit.  I had variable clean shears on the new windslab (10-20cm) with moderate to hard results but it generally seemed to be bonding well.  I would be leery of cross loaded slopes though and the better skiing is off of the windslab anyway.

 

Snow depths were averaging 170-190cm above 1900m although shallow areas still exist (especially where wind effected).

 

Surface hoar was growing with crystals 3-7mm observed at treeline ridgetops.

 

The resort will open tomorrow with excellent skiing to be had.

 

 

More photos at www.facebook.com/mountainsense

 

Cheers,

Shaun King  ACMG / UIAGM Mountain Guide

Mountain Sense Guiding & Instruction

www.mountainsense.ca  +1-250-505-5139

 

 

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