We were able to see a pretty large amount of terrain by helicopter today in the Monashees from Revelstoke North to Hat Peak, and in the Selkirks from Sale Mountain South to the Akokolex river. Overall, fairly rugged conditions. Alpine, tree line, and open terrain below tree line has been hammered pretty hard by winds from a variety of directions, certainly the odd sheltered terrain feature held soft looking snow, but generally VERY WIND AFFECTED. Below tree line, very low snow amounts indeed, with only 50 cm of snow on the ground at one spot we skied to at 5500 feet (1700m). Generally from what we saw, both ranges appeared similar in terms of snow coverage and wind affect.
Temperatures were between -18 and -26 which we found at 2900meters. Alpine wind was moderate out of the North East.
We didnt do much formal snowpack assessment, but the upper snowpack has definately been affected by the cold arcic air. What is not windslab, (either hard or breakable), is recrystalized, and very slow to ski on due to the cold temperatures. Overall, the snowpack did not feel very well settled, ie it felt shallow and faceted. We didnt perform any tests on the early November crust, but could feel it by probing, it did not feel very thick where we checked, and in some spots at tree line and below didnt help at all to carry our weight over the underlying ground.
As far as avalanche activity, there were a few isolated small sz 1 slabs in predictable spots up to 20 or 30 cm deep (suspect thin windslabs). Of significant note however, were several large avalanches in the size 2 to 3 range that ran on smooth, mostly glaciated terrain above about 2800 meters. Over the course of our morning, we saw about a half dozen of these, all in the Selkirks, however maybe we just didnt stumble across any in the Monashees. These slabs are hard to date as it hasnt snowed much in the last week, but certainly no older than the end of the last snowfall mid last week. These avalanches were on terrain between 35 and 45 degrees, 80-100cm deep and up to 175meters wide. Most were in immediate lee features, but a couple were mid slope. Aspects were due North, and North East. Hard to say without actually playing around at the crown lines, but we suspected these ran on the crust interface from early November that was formed before, and buried by all the latest storm snow. I am not sure if that crust actually went as high has these slabs which were 2800-3000 meters, most other reports show them to at least 2500 meters. It was hard to tell 100%, but one of these avalanches (sz 2.5), looked like it might have actually run on the summer snow interface. These avalanches sound very similar to another few isolated slides that were reported at similar elevations over the last week. Odd that no similar avalanches were seen in similar terrain at slightly lower elevations?
Coverage in the high alpine on the glaciers appears not too bad for this time of year, obviously lots of open holes and sags that one would expect to see at this time of year.
We did manage to find a few good turns between the windslab, and shallow burried obstacles, but then again, we did have a helicopter and 2 mountain ranges to work with.....
Cheers
Jeff Honig Mountain Guide
Dave Pehowich Ski Guide
