d sarkany and i decided to practice our grovelling for a few hours this PM and headed up the NE end of the ridge that separates cayoosh basin from cayoosh pass. most of the grovelling occurred between 1500 and 1850m where the height of snow is still a little thin to provide easy travel through the small bluffs and understorey on these steep forested slopes.
at the pass 1280m there is 20cms of moist storm snow with a 1cm layer of wet grains 8cms down. by approx 1500m the snow was dry and the coverage in the forest is navigable but marginally skiable. from 1650m up to our high point at 1850m there is a very reactive shear on well preserved 4-5mm stellars 40cms deep. we dug a very quick pit at 1850m on a NE aspect and this layer stood out like a prominent surface hoar layer with compression tests at the very low end of moderate and sudden planar shears. there was also an easy shear in the storm snow 15cms down and the 1-2mm facets (here found only below the december 6 crust) collapsed in the moderate range. the snow depth at this location was an average of 120cms. air temp was -3. ski penetration was 25cms on the lower angled portions of the skin track and the skiing was good down to approximately 1600m wherever you could milk a few turns between the trees and in small boulder fields.
from about 1300hrs to 1430 hrs there were broken skies but by the time we were back at the car the skies were obscured and it was snowing 2-3 cms per hour. on the drive down the snow turned to rain at about 750m elevation and by the time we reached pemberton there was significant clearing in the skies to the N and E.
Mike Wilson
asg
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