Hello,
Just spent the last few days ( Feb12-15 ) camping and skiing in Bostock Creek area with the Canadian New Zealand semester. We were seeing basically the same things as reported by Sylvia a few days ago. We also were able to skier control a size 1 avalanche about 30 meters wide and 60 meters long on the 2-3 cm surface hoar. This avalanche was on a north aspect at 1400 meters. We also were finding the surface hoar on the south aspects at lower elevations was about the same size as the north aspect. At higher elevations the surface hoar was much smaller however the crust on the south aspect was still giving easy to moderate results.
As of yesterday afternoon the snow above the surface hoar/crust was settling into a more cohesive slab. I would imagine given this and the new snow that is falling we will see larger propagations on this layer, which could easily be triggered by a skier.
Heads Up!
Jesse de Montigny
Assistant Ski Guide
Assistant Alpine Guide