Spent the last two days ski touring at Roger's Pass.
Overall ski quality was good to excellent, but snow coverage below 1800m is still seriously lacking. Nov 24 was spent in Hospital Bowl and Ursus Trees. At 2400m air temp was -5 and ski pen was 15 to 25cm. Though there was some minor wind effect, skiing was excellent. On steeper SW aspects there was a 1 to 3 cm thick sun crust in the Ursus Trees area. Compression tests gave consistent moderate to hard results down 25 to 35cm.
On Nov 25 we traveled through Bruin's Pass to ski the glacier on the north side. Overnight surface hoar had grown up to 10mm below tree line. On the glacier variable wind effect has resulted in everything from ruffled snow to a thin, breakable, 4F wind crust that was still very skiable, though not quite as fun. Hs at 2400m was 220cm and air temp was -6. We descended 8812 Bowl on the way home and despite the abundance of weekend ski traffic, skiing was quite good. Though we observed no recent avalanche activity, there was evidence of widespread avalanche activity (both natural and skiier triggered) on steep lee features to size 1.5 that probably occurred within the last 4 to 5 days.
Have fun out there!
Jeremy Mackenzie
ACMG/IFMGA Mountain Guide
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