[MCR] Rockies: Sunshine slack country / Twin Cairns

The ACC North Face crew spent the last day of our course in the Sunshine slack country. After all the avalanche activity we had see in the last 24 – 48 hours we decided not to push the terrain.

As we reported earlier the height of the snowpack was about 100cm but there is a lot of variability with many areas with as little as 70 – 80cm. Lots of cracking and whumpfing just about everywhere we travelled. Limited visibility during the day so no new activity to report.

Once again we used conservative terrain both up and down. We ascended Twin Cairns via the back side and worked the terrain to reduce our avalanche exposure to essentially zero. Broke trail to both summits on foot. Cornices along the ridge are still not huge but we gave them a good wide berth anyway. Wind was picking up along the summit ridge during the short time we spent up there. We stayed well clear of runout zones the entire day.

The ski down the back side was excellent with boot top powder. On several runs we encountered occasional weak spots which collapsed while descending giving several folks the opportunity to test the snowpack using the “head penetration” technique. Cranial penetration was 50 – 75cm. We did not ski the Wawa Bowl or Repeater ridge areas but stayed on terrain less than 25 degrees instead.

Skiing out on the groomers was pretty darn good even at the end of the day...

Cyril Shokoples MG
Matt Reynolds MG
ACC TNF Crew: J St-Pierre, F. Mulvenna, J. MacDonald, G. Miller, N. Steiner, Manouane, W. Strong, A. Revill, H. Davidson, S. Lambert



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