Greetings,
Just returned from a wonderful week of ski touring at Battle Abbey, in the heart of the Selkirks. One of the best weeks of skiing I’ve had the pleasure to experience in a couple of seasons!
Having arrived to clear skies and good stability, the first night saw the start of 50-70cm of storm snow over the course of the next three days, accompanied by strong winds from the S.W. Needless to say we found ourselves tip-toeing around with the Feb 20th interface becoming very reactive naturally and to skier control. Numerous natural avalanches to size 3.0 and ‘endless’ skier controlled soft slabs to size 1.5. We rated stability poor/very poor in the alpine, poor at tree-line and fair/poor below tree-line. The Feb 20th interface varied in crystal type from suncrust/facets on steep solar, just good old facets and scattered surface hoar on shaded aspects below t-line, and old wind slab in other areas… Several other ‘stellar’ shears existed within the storm snow as well. Most skier controlled slabs would start within the storm snow and then quickly step down to the Feb 20th layer. Fortunately, the results were entirely predictable and very easy to control with ski cutting. We restricted ourselves to terrain appropriate to such touchy conditions and we ‘ski cut’ each and every roll, each and every day! The result was excellent, safe powder skiing!!
On Wednesday the skies began to clear and we cautiously began to venture further abroad. Downhill travel was excellent, but uphill travel was extremely deep and slow! We progressed uphill much like a wannabe Olympic relay team. Ski pen to 80cm. By the end of the day we had upgraded our snow stability rating to 3 x fair, as we were no longer expecting natural activity other than in specific terrain features. Sun exposed slopes, wind slabs and possible cornice triggers remained a concern. The ski quality was excellent on all aspects and at all elevations that we observed.
Thursday, Friday and Saturday saw a rapid and consistent improvement in travel and snow stability. By yesterday the storm snow had settled and tightened in to a ski penetration of 20cm and were rating stability 3x good. Though caution remained primarily on steep solar aspects where the now buried suncrust/facet layer persisted and threatened to become grumpy, as well as areas where concern for buried wind-slab remained. We witnessed a large cornice release on Friday, 8500 feet, east aspect. Large cornice hole, no avalanche. Regardless, we were skiing on the “fair side of good”, as they say. And I’d expect it to remain the same for a while yet…
Cheers,