What a change 48 hrs can make.
Saturdays storm triggered a good size avalanche cycle off Mt Cheops (N. Aspect) into Connaught Ck., quite a few of which ran to the end of their fans, one healthy class 3.0 for sure – all the avalanches ran during the warm phase of the storm that occurred on Sat. PM when it rained to 1800m.
Later Saturday night and into Sunday morning, it cooled dramatically forming a variable strength raincrust below 1800m.. Above 1800m I would estimate 30-40cm. storm snow with snowpacks in the Balu area averaging 120cm. almost all of which feels about the same strength until you hit the crust down about 60-80cm.
I saw a couple of shears in the storm snow down 20 and 30 cms. but they didn’t appear reactive to skiers. The snow was not light powder, but more spongy (for lack of a better term) and carvable with fairly shallow ski penetration (which is good at this time of year).
Weather cleared off by late afternoon and it is clear tonight so things should just tighten up even more and I imagine the surface crust will get stronger and may support better tomorrow. Today skiing out the trail (which is right were the raincrust forms) was nothing short of deadly and I can hardly recommend it to anyone. There were quite a few people up there today (at least 20) – I was happy not to find any injured on the track out (me included).
Cheers,
Scott Davis
Mountain Guide