Hi all,
I just finished guiding a week long ski mountaineering
trip across the Adamants & Sir
Sandford range. We accessed the area by helicopter from Golden starting
near the
headwaters of Austerity creek. We traveled between 1800m and 3150m from
Mount Sir Williams to
Moberly pass via Fairy Meadows, Great Cairn and the Goldstream névé
areas. We
made several ascents including; Unicorn peak, Pioneer Peak, The
Footstool, Alpina Dome, Citadel Mountain as well as a few unnamed peaks
in the Goldstream Névé area. Weather, traveling conditions and snowpack
were all very seasonal. We were greeted by clear skies on the first four
days and had mixed weather
with classic convective snow showers on the remainder of the week.
Freezing levels were between 2500m & 3000m during the day lowering
to below 2000m most nights. Travel was on supportive melt freeze crust
in early AM changing to moist snow on all solar aspects by mid day. We
took advantage of the firm morning conditions to increase safety. All
glaciers encountered were passable and well covered. Some crevasse
bridges were starting to sag but were
still strong particularly in the AM.
The snowpack was mostly
stable in the
morning however, it quickly deteriorated with daytime warming &
solar
radiations in the PM. Isothermal snow was observed below 2000m on
southerly aspects. The
area received 30-40 cm of new snow during the second half
of the week which lead to excellent powder skiing particularly on
northerly
aspects. This new snow was bonding well to the previous layer. Snowpack
height ranged between 200cm and 300cm at treeline elevations. The April
10th interface was down 30-60 cm, it was touchy earlier
in the week showing moderate sudden shear results. We experience
extensive whumpfing on this layer earlier in the week. The warm temps
helped
this layer bond and shear results improved throughout the week. As we
left yesterday, another layer of surface hoar was forming. We saw
crystals up
to 7mm at mountain tops, most of which was already melting off on solar
aspects. On the avalanche front, we observed a heath & radiation
induced avalanche cycle on April 21st and 22nd. Numerous wet loose
avalanches along with
the odd deep slab avalanche up to size 3 out of steep rocky south
facing terrain were observed in the afternoon those days. Of note, we
saw very little activity out of north facing terrain.
With careful planning and proper timing, fine ski mountaineering can still be found in the northern Selkirks!
Cheers,
David Lussier
mountain guide
www.summitmountainguides.com 
