[MCR] Howson Range, Northern British Columbia

I've been guiding here in the north for the past 11 days, the last 4 days at Burnie Glacier Chalet with my colleague Christoph Dietzfelbinger.

 

While things aren't nearly as desperate as further south there are definitely avalanche concerns now after the past few days of stormy and erratic weather. The carefree days of great stability we've been enjoying have been put on hold.

In the Howsons we have 25-50cm of recent storm snow sitting on top of the Valentine's Day facet interface, which up until yesterday was unreactive.

Yesterday's strong to extreme W winds, warm temps (4C at 1030m) and a couple of hours of sun resulted in a small natural avalanche cycle to size 2 (large enough to kill you) on lee/crossloaded alpine features (several S, one E running over the "Ptarmigan" run's steepest line for a length of about 700m). The thin sun crust that formed on S aspects up to treeline yesterday is now covered by 5-10cm of new snow.

Today a test pit on the Knob of Neverending Love (NE asp, 35deg) revealed Moderate (11) Compression Test and Extended Column Test results, fast and clean (SP) on the Valentine's Day facets (about 1mm) down about 45cm. This storm snow was reactive to ski cutting (cracking, sliding) on steep unsupported below treeline gully features.

 

We were careful with our terrain choices today, but the skiing continues to be excellent in the trees and moderate angled, sheltered treeline features.

 

We'll continue to be cautious and watch for an improvement in the storm snow/facet interface before stepping it up again.

Regards,
Tom Wolfe
Mountain Guide ACMG/IFMGA
Canmore, AB

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