[MCR] KickingHorse Back Country

Subject: [MCR] KickingHorse Back Country
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 07:40:34 -0700

I was guiding Feb 22 up Rudi’s bowl then North into the Molar’s Bowl and out an East facing run.

The South aspects, athough only showing slab near the ridgetop in the morning, developed slab that whumphed and had shooting cracks up to 10m long by the afternoon at treeline. The terrain we were on was not steep enough to slide, otherwise we would have experienced an avalanche incident. This snow failed on the surface hoar, 3cm thick, buried 20 cm down

The area was hit by strong winds out of the NorthWest.  On The North aspects, the skiing was upside down with up to a 10 cm wind slab on top of loose snow. The fragile surface hoar layer was down 30 cm. The previous tracks coming from the exposed couloirs were raised and the texture of the snow indicates widespread wind slabs in the alpine with remarkable crossloading in the lower parts of the avalanche paths.

We carefully selected our runs to avoid convex rolls and steep terrain.

The upcoming storm is likely to make the avalanche hazard worse. The wind slabs will likely promote wide avalanches in the next avalanche cycle.

Take care

Stan Metcalfe, Apprentice Ski Guide

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