[MCR] Bow Summit conditions Dec 18

Bow Summit had broken skies,  moderate temps around -3 with lighter winds today occasionally rising to moderate. We received 15-20 cm of new snow overnight and morning which was bonding well. There was little wind associated with this new snow at tree line and below which offered good powder skiing even in open areas at these elevations.

We saw one less than 24 hour old size 2 loose snow avalanche out of the main north bowl steep feature that had likely run during the storm.  At treeline on NE aspects, snowpack tests were producing mainly high end of easy to moderate results on the depth hoar basal layer which is an improvement over last weekend. Snowpack now sits at 80 - 100cm. The two main concerns we saw were signs of light wind affect higher up in the alpine and a few times during the day the wind did pick up. With quite a bit of new snow available for transport, there will be surface soft slabs and more deeply buried wind slab at ridge top lee features. As well any shallow snowpack areas, trigger points such as rocks sticking out of the snowpack especially on any windloaded or convex/unsupported feature really could trigger that deep layer, which would go to ground.

Eric Dumerac - Professional Mountain Guide - IFMGA/ACMG, CAA II ,CSIA II
✆Canada: Canmore 011- 403-609-1564 
Mountain Skills Academy 

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