Just back from guiding a ski touring week
in the Southern Purcells, east of Kaslo in the Powder Creek drainage. The week
started with cool winter conditions then transitioned to spring mid week. 35cm
of snow fell over the week with very little wind. Freezing levels went from
vallley bottoms to 1500m on most days. March 25th was the exception, as freezing
levels rose to create moist snow to 2200m on all aspects. The surface crust
formed when this snow froze was buried by 15cm of new snow over the past few
days.
The snowpack is quite well
settled, and we found no significant shears in the upper snowpack. The weak
layers formed by the mid winter drought are buried down 160-180cm in this
drainage. In some locations, this layer consists of well preserved surface hoar
and still produced moderate to hard sudden deep tap test results.
Early in the week, we
observed a couple isolated natural slab avalanches to size 2 from steep north
facing terrain at treeline and in the Alpine. Numerous wet and dry loose
releases to size 1.5 were observed from steep terrain at all aspects and
elevations.
Ski conditions were
excellent on shaded aspects, and we travelled extensively from the Alpine to
valley bottoms. Because of the uncertainty that exists with the buried
persistent weak layer, we avoided aggressive, unsupported terrain, particularly
on March 25th when the warm weather arrived.
Enjoy the spring!
Ramin Sherkat
ACMG Ski Guide
Roger Yim
ACMG
ASG