An excellent day guiding strong skiers on steep alpine lines today. We were at the West end of the North Face of Bow Pk. Skied the main avalanche path and prominent North coiloire. No new avalanches, no whumphing or cracking. I have been skiing this zone on and off for 2 weeks now and am well familiar with this snowpack. Further indication of good stability was gained from natural slope test resulting from 24 hour old cornice failure debris from adjacent slopes to the East. Big craters and large broken chunks rolled to valley and did not trigger anything. Snowpack tests as well show no results (including January 25 SH layer- for now!). However I would give a strong caution to any shallow areas as they have a definitive weak faceted layer. Beware of that in any wind affected areas where a slab may be overlaying this or in steeper unsuported & convex features. I have been staying where the snowpack is fat! Today we had cool temps down to -13, mainly calm and awesome fast skiing with 10cm+ ski pen on large surface hoar to size 5mm. The surface hoar is widespread from top to bottom and will be a force to recon with once burried by the next storm. We did not go to the top of the couloire as has it had been pounded into a hard surface by spindrift in the upper 1/4, it is was not threatened by any significant cornices though there are some small albeit well rooted ones to the sides.
Happy Turns,
Eric Dumerac-IFMGA/ACMG Mountain Guide
eric@igbguides.com, www.skiXperts.com 1-877-309-7673
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