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Hi, A few friends and I spent a cool and clear New Year's day ski touring in the southern Purcells about 40 km west of Kimberley. We skied at elevations from 1500 m to 2500 m. The most notable thing about the day was the strong winds out of the northwest. In the past day or so these winds have transformed the alpine; it is now a very variable mix of soft slab, hard slab, and sastrugi. There was intense snow transport happening all day; this caused rapid snow loading of nearby lee areas at the top end of the treeline elevation band (around 2200 m). This loading caused a natural avalanche cycle of size 1 and 2 slab avalanches on smaller terrain features. The slab thicknesses varied from 10cm to 60cm, with widths of up to 60 m. We observed perhaps 15 of these windslabs that had failed within the past 12 hours, and we also witnessed one and ski cut another. We did not see any avalanches failing in larger terrain features. >From 2200 m to 200m the snow was mildly wind affected in exposed areas, with facetting in the top 20 cm. Surface hoar to about 10 mm in size was observed in most places below 2000 m. After retreating from higher elevations due to the wind and poor skiing conditions we found some excellent facetted powder in the trees lower down. Besides the recent windslabs there were no other instabilities found in the snowpack. There was intermittent valley fog hanging around at about 1800 m throughout the day. A great day in the mountains to start the year! Jeff Volp Ski Guide Kimberley, BC _______________________________________________________________
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