I was guiding at Rogers Pass the last three days.
April 13: Freezing level had risen well into the Alpine on the 12th with no freeze that night. We had white out conditions. We went to the Sir Donald moraine almost to the base of Sir D. On the way we saw impressive wet slides from Perley Rock and the Practice gullies to size 2.5. The Practice gullies had second and third waves come down throughout the day - intense greenhouse effect. These were mainly initiating at treeline elevation. At noon, 2200 meters, windless and -2, atop the Sir Donald moraine, a compression test on a NW 35deg, slope produced hard resistant planar shears on the March 27th layer 40cm down. The snowpack here is laminated like a crust layer cake and moist down the entire test pit depth of 140cm. Despite the dismal conditions we did find good skiing until 1700 meters where just about any open terrain steeper than 25 degrees or convex would slide easily and for a good distance down 25 cm.
April 14: Freezing levels thankfully came down along with some new snow, up to 30cm in the high alpine and more reported from areas West of Rogers Pass summit. Intense solar that morning until afternoon clouds saved the day. Frequent Flyer slide path went big again in the last week sometime. We skied a run down lower Ursus Minor in good spring snow, then up to Bruins Pass. To reach the pass we did a short boot pack from the morain. An indicator run down Ursus Major bowl provided us with excellent dry powder down to about 1900 Meters. We then skied up to 8812 W ridge and summited the peak via a boot pack on the N face adjacent the W ridge. Shear tests below this face and just off the summit provided hard resistant planar shears down 10cm and 35cm. Ski cutting the steep face produced no results apart from sloughing. Very good powder at these higher North elevations and stable snow. We skied down the South bowl and were surprised at finding very good skiing here as well. Several avalanches to sz1.5 from both steep/rocky solar aspects and off of Cheops North chutes.
April 15: A little more snow overnight, freezing levels remained below 1200 Meters. White out conditions this day. We skied to the entrance of Forever Young couloir via the Lookout notch approach. Along the way we encountered glide cracks that were avoided yet very deceiving. The cracks extend below the surface like a crevasse and are quite deep, being bridged and hidden by weak snow. A hazard to watch for. As well a large morainal feature at about 2000 meters had me turn around and circumnavigate it instead as its snowpack was very moist verging on isothermal. Overall a weak snowpack here especially on any steeper sun exposed moraines, such rolls are primed for human triggering. The multitude of crevasses that exist at the tongue of the Illecillewaet and Lookout were well filled in with only the largest holes visible. Forever Young had 35 - 45cm of well bonded light snow atop the old bed surface. No shears in this feature and many ski cuts only resulted only in power sloughing. Excellent deep dry powder throughout until 1900 Meters.
Eric Dumerac- Professional Mountain Guide
✆ 403-609-1564
Mountain Skills Academy