[MCR] Ski Conditions Bald Hills Jasper

Subject: [MCR] Ski Conditions Bald Hills Jasper
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 07:28:16 -0700
A warming trend yesterday in Jasper encouraged me to have a look at ski conditions in the Maligne Lake area.

The snowpack at the parking lot at Maligne lake is about 10cm of weak recrystallized snow.

I started to notice an ice crust near the ground at about 1700 metres which kept your bases off the ground.

At 2200 metres the snowpack is about 35cm. I never probed more than 40cm in my travels up to about 2350m. A soft slab and some wind affected surface snow was observed above treeline but the recent cold temperatures have faceted the upper slab making is skiable. There was no evidence of any recent avalanche activity. The skiing at and above treeline is OK and the basal crust provides some support and good glide.

The fire road is in pretty good shape for descending, considering the depth, and there has been enough traffic to make getting down reasonable.

I would not want to ski down anywhere below 1800 metres on anything but the fire road right now, due to the shallow pack and visible ground features.

With care and common sense there are a few turns to enjoy, and it is nice to slowly get back into winter mode.

Peter Amann



Peter Amann
Mountain Guiding
www.incentre.net/pamann/

Attachment: base tele hill nov 16 14.JPG
Description: JPEG image

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