Wow! The big storm of the winter (maybe), dropped over 140 cm of snow at 1224m and around 200 cm at tree line elevations. For the majority of three days it snowed between 2-3 cm an hour.
Total snowpack height at TL is well over 3.0 m and 2.4m at 1224m.
There were several mid-storm shears producing natural loose avalanches at all elevations and aspects up to size 2.5 and running full path. There were some isolated full storm snow slabs releasing naturally at the interface from Jan 11th on both TL features and along the creek banks. This interface has spotty SH which is sitting on a denser layer and is now buried over 1.0m or more.
The majority of the storm was very calm at tree line and below tree line but I would expect the ALP certainly had some wind, especially at ridgelines.
The air temperatures remained constant between -10.0c to -14.5c during the majority of the storm. Then yesterday (Jan15th) the air temps rose in a few hours from -14.0 to -.08 which also produced a few mm of rain between 1000m and possibly up to 1600m. This dramatically changed the storm snow loading properties. There is now a rain crust in this elevation band that is anywhere from 2 cm to a few mm thick (skin).
There was a very strong inversion yesterday with the warm moist air trapping all that cold air in the valley bottoms.
We had very limited obs from the alpine, however yesterday during a brief window of visibility we did not see any huge slabs in the start zones but tons of full path loose sluffs to size 2.5.
Our biggest concern is the spotty buried surface hoar layer at the storm snow interface from Jan 8th to Jan 11th. I was able to remote trigger the full storm snow slab in skiable tree line glades, these would run fast and far until the slope angle changed.
Leaving the North Blue yesterday we stayed well away from any avalanche path run outs and below treeline steep short slopes and terrain traps.
Foot pen is over 100 cm and trail breaking is silly but we are suckers for punishment.
So, find a nice place to tree ski, set in a track and get your laps in until the snowpack gains some equilibrium. The face shots are amazing!
Dana Foster Ludwig
Ski Guide
CAA Prof. Member
Snowy Mountain Alpine Tours and chalets
Blue River - Clearwater BC
P 250 674 2988
www.snowymountain.ca