I have spent the last 19 days watching the snowpack shape up in the Perry River/Anstey Mtn area, here is what stood out to me.
The Nov.8 raincrust is quite widespread but was so low in the snowpack that you need a smooth(meaning lack of ground roughness) planar feature for it to be an issue – places I would think about would be large glacial features – and I have not had the opportunity to make any obs in that kind of terrain – so big ? for me. But in general we have not had any activity on this layer to date within TL and BTL terrain.
The Dec.8 storm snow interface is the main issue – recent storms (45cms. In 24hours Dec.12) have created a slab of 60-80cms over this interface. Before the snow came, that week of nice (almost spring like) weather in early December, created a snow surface of either suncrust (steeper SE/SW aspects), Surface hoar 5-10mm (predominantly in cutblocks below 1800m. and in isolated locations along TL ridge crests – where the wind didn’t get at it)or a facet stellar combo. Not a great interface to park a bunch of snow on.
We experienced a natural cycle during the day of Dec. 12, which seemed mostly limited to the 45cms of storm snow and did not pull down to the Dec.8th interface with the exception of a few larger events out of the Alpine. By the next day ski penetration diminished dramatically and the storm snow was no longer reactive to ski tests. Definitely had a lot of Whumpfs in the cutblocks mentioned above – but they were too low angled to go anywhere. Next to the Surface hoar our biggest concern was the Suncrust interface – so we avoided larger steep open features where we knew the suncrust existed.
Snowpack averaged around 80-120cms. back in Nov. with weak faceted areas around larger rocks – after the last storms it is more like 130-160cms of settled snow which carries you above most of the early season hazards of the last few weeks. Unlike other areas we noticed that our alder was laid down and buried more than usual for this time of year or amount of snow.
We have had a lot of recent load and personally my confidence is a little low as I feel I need a bit of time and maybe a few explosive tests to see how this slab reacts on the Dec.8 layer before committing to any serious terrain.
None the less there is some great skiing out there – I would just be a little picky.
Best of the Season to everyone!
Scott Davis
ACMG/IFMGA Mountain Guide