Just out from a week at Selkirk Lodge (halfway between
Currently an impressive spring storm has deposited between 40-60 cm. of snow in the last 48hrs. at Treeline elevations and likely closer to a meter in the high alpine – we observed snowfall rates yesterday afternoon in excess of 3 cm/hour that continued well into the night – moderate to strong winds from the SW accompanied this snowfall until they switched to moderate to strong from the North last night. This was followed by a dramatic cooling overnight (Friday April 14th) with morning temps of -10 Celsius Saturday morning which seemed to help with the bonding of the storm snow to the crust below it.
We ski cut several steep rolls to test them with no results and other test results were likewise favorable – however when the skies cleared this afternoon while we waited for the helicopter to arrive we observed that the entire head of the valley (an exposed alpine cirque) had released sometime late in the storm propagating over a distance of 2 kilometers and involving the release of terrain that was in the 25 degree incline – though much of it was steeper than that – aspect ranged from NE through NW – visibility was still foggy but it seemed to be several large slabs that I am highly suspect released simultaneously but that had small pieces of terrain still intact between them – anyway quite an event for sure and quite contradictory to our evidence a few kilometers away (and also several hours of time different).
All that to say that conditions have changed significantly in the mountains and special attention should be paid to the affects of daytime heating and the still lurking presence of the late March buried surface hoar layer in the high north facing alpine.
Cheers,
Scott Davis
Mountain Guide