First off, my apologies for failing to sign my last post (Rogers Pass Avalanche cycle) – but it was late at night J!
Today I went up the Asulkan drainage as far as Asulkan hut – thankfully Adam and Chris (two local Revy nurses) spent 8 hours putting the trail in yesterday – way to go BOYS!
Weather – Cold(-15 in the parking lot) and clear until some cloud started to filter in from the north around 1PM – you could see some wind transport happening in the higher alpine but no real wind below 2500m.
Avalanches – likewise a large cycle occurred near the end of the storm on Monday night/Tuesday morning – lots of fracture lines visible on most steep alpine features. One avalanche from the Sapphire Col side of the valley ran all the way to the Mousetrap, turned the corner and ran another 100m. Down the drainage. The Lookout Mountain side had no real activity.
At around noon today the Dome Col released a natural avalanche on the East facing slope below the col – it was pretty much full width of that slope (probably a 100-150 metres wide) and looks like it may have gone on the old summer snow interface (meaning it was deep). It stopped on the bench below but then the much steeper section below the bench also released even larger (we couldn’t get a good look at it). Obviously things are still adapting to the new load of the last storm cycle!
Travel Conditions – the storm snow has started to settle a bit but still real deep ski penetration (40-60cms) – great skiing and the snowpack is a little deeper than over in Connaught Ck. Don’t even think about going on the glaciers unless you are fully rigged up – tons of holes everywhere – lots of new issues after this summer had its way with our Glaciers!
Snowpack - limited observations as all we did was check out the Tree Triangle – HS was @160cms there and the snowpack was pretty much a lot of recent snow that is slowly settling out – It would be interesting to get a look at some of those fracture lines in the ALP – most looked like storm snow depths but others looked like they may be involving the October interface. Fellow Guide Dave Sproule was over at the Practice Slopes (in the Illicilliwaet Drainage) and noted some 5mm surface hoar down @60cms .
Cheers,
Scott Davis
ACMG/IFMGA Mountain Guide