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Thursday, January 13, 2011

[MCR] Selkirks - Norther Valhallas

The snow continues to pile up, with another 30cm+ in the last 2 days.  Around noon today the winds starting kicking into mod-high gear from the W-SW and by 2pm a few naturals on crossloaded aspects (N and S) had already been observed in alpine and treeline locations of size 1 to 2.  We had a skier triggered avalanche size 2 as well today with a self guided group that the person skied out of on a small opening in the trees with a 38 degree start zone at 2200m, N asp down 55cms to a buried preserved stellar layer (from Jan 6th) that has produced a number of naturals in our region from the last week.  We are at our highest temps since last week now, with -3 at 5pm at 1760m, so it seems like the warm and windy storm has arrived.  Anticipating a sizable natural cycle out there so stay safe, as some deeper buried facet layers might become reactive with even more load.

Evan Stevens
Mountain Guide
Valhalla Mountain Touring
www.vmt.ca
evanstevens@gmail.com