couple of lines into the Kutetl drainage, east side of Ymir Mountain
'behind' the ski area and a couple into the Five-Mile drainage to the
north east of the ski area. The big feature of the last few days has
been the temperature inversion. Although upper level temperatures
haven't reached the freezing level yet, they were coming close today.
Yesterday, the temperatures were steady around -3, today they were
closer to -1. The south western slopes are being trashed by the
afternoon sun forming a 1-2cm sun crust. Snow melting off the trees has
formed thick ice crusts around the tree wells on this aspect as well.
We managed to ski down these slopes back to the ski area before the sun
went down and everything froze up, so the skiing wasn't too bad.
Another feature of the last few days is surface hoar growth. In
sheltered and shaded areas below 2000m the crystals are reaching about
20-25mm in size. This surface hoar and the sun crusts could be a
concern when we get some more snow.
The ridge-top winds, which were moderate from the south east at 2200m
yesterday, moved down slope overnight. This change stiffened the snow a
bit into a thin wind slab on north west aspects, but affected the ski
quality only slightly.
There were a number of avalanche crowns observed on various aspects.
These had run since the last snowfall, but I couldn't tell what layer
they had run on. Perhaps the Dec 12 facet layer. The hand shears I did
yesterday near the ridge tops where in the moderate to hard range,
failing on a facet layer (Dec 12?). There wasn't much snow on top of
this layer (20-25cm) in the areas I tested, probably blown off by the wind.
One thing to note are the tree bombs. The snow is still hanging in the
trees, and getting denser. These things are getting heavy, so we
avoided contact with trees to keep from knocking the bombs on us.
Despite the apparent good stability, we still skied cautiously. We
minimized our time on steep open slopes, avoided convex rolls and skied
one at a time to islands of safety. In all, we had some excellent skiing.
Play safe and have fun.
Craig Hollinger,
ACMG Assistant Ski Guide.
_______________________________________________
These observations and opinions are those of the person who submitted them. The ACMG and its members take no responsibility for errors, omissions, or lapses in continuity. Conditions differ greatly over time and space due to the variable nature of mountain weather and terrain. Application of this information provides no guarantee of increased safety. Do not use the Mountain Conditions Report as the sole factor in planning trips or making decisions in the field.
Please check out http://acmg.ca/mcr for more information.