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Sunday, January 6, 2008

[MCR] Pemberton Area, Coast Mountains

I was skiing East of Mt. Curry above Pemberton today.  We found that the Dec 3/4th  layer got active mid storm probably yesterday and triggered many slab avalanches to size 2.5.  Many North facing rolls and steeper faces in the upper Tree Line slid.
The one fracture line I checked out was 130 - 170 cm deep. This slab slid 10 cm above the December ice layer in a layer of old facets. 
We did not see cracking or hear any sounds that would indicate further instabilities during our runs or during some ski cutting. But the presence of all these slides was easily enough to generally keep us off steeper angled terrain. We did not see fracture lines from slab avalanche activity in the Alpine or  Below Treeline but our observations where limited to one drainage and hampered by lots of cloud. About 1.2 meters snow fell (at tree line) during the last storm all of F to 4F density.
The skiing quality was excellent.
 
Dave Sarkany
Ski Guide