-20 in Jasper this morning under cloudy skies in town.
Felt cold in the Maligne parking lot and the thermometer confirmed
with -34....(must have been the cold spot in Alberta today!)
Decided to go for a short walk and see if things warmed up....-25 at
the summer trail junction and -20 at treeline in nice sunshine.
TP at treeline showed an ~50-70cm snowpack. top 20cm is 4finger snow
from earlier this week....midpack is mature facets (F fist sitting on
the decomposing rain crust down at 54cm.) We were getting CTE and CTM
shears collapsing in the facet layer above the crust. Below treeline
the pack is still unconsolidated not stiff enough to react as a unit.
In many shallow places the rain crust is barely there if at all,
mostly decomposed from the cold temps.
Wind affect was noted higher in the alpine and would suspect things
up high are quite different, but didn't get that far up.
Some minor activity in the steep NE bowl above the hitching rail but
couldn't see anything else on the surrounding peaks...
Hard travelling if off the trail.
Ski penetration was down 45cm, foot penetration is pretty much the
ground. If you tried to ski down off the road (which we didn't!) it
would probably not be very nice at all...
Peter Amann
Mountain Guide
Peter Amann
pamann@incentre.net
_______________________________________________
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