[MCR] Kootenay Pass, Southern Selkirks

Hi all,

Today we skied some well spaced trees in the Twin Lakes area on the south side of Kootenay Pass between 2100m and 1600m. There was surprisingly very little skier traffic here today. We had obscured skies, temperatures ranging from -5C to -7C and 20cm of low density snow during the day. The amount of new snow from this recent storm (past 4 days) is close to 80cm in this area. Ridge top winds were light to moderate from the west however it was calm in protected treeline and below treeline areas.

The main hazard we saw today was the new surface snow sloughing while skiing steeper terrain. We did not observed any new natural avalanches or other signs of instability. We did a few quick snow profiles at select north facing treeline locations and found various resistant planar shears in the storm snow and on the recently buried surface hoar layer. For the most part, it seems like the recent storm snow was not consolidated enough to be reactive as a slab in this area today. This will likely change as we get more snow and more snowpack settlement. The foretasted warmer temperatures over the next few days may contribute to that as well.

Have a powderful day!

David Lussier
ACMG Mountain Guide
www.summitmountainguides.com

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