Spent the day skiing on the south facing slopes above Commonwealth
Creek. Excellent skiing on low density snow from yesterday's storm
(20+ cm, low density fluff) that has so far seen little wind.
Our primary concern was a storm slab/wind slab that we found hidden
underneath this layer. This is the storm snow from the previous cycle
(Jan 6) which sits on the holiday facets (down 40+ cm).
Most of the main supported chutes (N facing) above Tryst have been
skied either yesterday or today. No signs of skier triggered avalanche
activity, but then nobody is venturing over the bigger loaded rolls,
out of fear for the facet interface no doubt.
On the other side of the ridge (S facing), ski cutting produced no
results on small steep south-facing treeline rolls today, which kind
of surprised me since the snowpack felt a bit punchy and weird in
spots. No whoompfing or cracking observed. The snowpack higher on the
ridge was very shallow, with 20+ cm of snow sitting on a hard
melt-freeze crust (10-20 cm) sitting on top of rock.
Lots of evidence of smaller recent activity that has been partly or
mostly filled in by the end of the storm yesterday. The path in the
attached photo (S facing) had what looked to be at least a size 2.5
come out of the steep gullies on the E and SE aspect of The Fist,
likely early yesterday or previously.
Cold today, ranging from -23 to -18, but calm and nice in the sun.
Tom
--
Tom Wolfe
Mountain Guide ACMG/IFMGA
Canmore, AB
Bruce_Commonweatlh_Fist_South_Asp(1).jpg
Description: JPEG image
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