| some quick observations from a tour into the Hospital & 8812 Bowl area yesterday:
early season coverage is sparse as usual, though the trail is in acceptable shape, and most ground features are now covered above treeline. creek crossings are narrow & thin, but passable. the snowpack for the most part is very supportive, giving on average a ski penetration of about 20cm. nice skiing if one doesn’t hit anything, though one of us hit a few rocks when skiing on more proud features.
some isolated spots of sun crust on the lower angled slopes that we skied (anything tilted towards the afternoon sun) and more evidence of solar heating (snowballs & pinwheels) on steeper solar aspects. also, very isolated minor wind effect was noted, but nothing widespread.
we toured in the area of the recent large avalanche on what i call Bruin’s Ridge, the ridge feature separating Hospital Bowl & 8812 Bowl. the bed surface of the slide at ridge line is a very firm crust (3cm where we checked) that appears to be quite continuous in that location, and a hard slab had developed in the immediate lee of the ridge. the crust is right at the snow depth of most ground features and the bed surface had many instances of the tops of rocks sticking out. two things that struck us as important to note was first how wide the fracture was (aprox 250m along the ridge) & how far the propagation went, as well as how far the slide ran (over 850m) and where it stopped - it overran the usual up track to the Video Peak region.
we did not do much investigation as to how widespread the basal crust is in this region, but expect that it will be present on many alpine features. also of note was how firm it was - i expect that it will be present & preserved for some time and worthy of tracking for the next while.
moderate numbers of cars at both the Illecillewaet parking lot & at the Vistor’s Centre.
cheers,
dave healey ACMG ski guide
emelie stenberg ACMG ski guide
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