Spicy on the Shoulder

Quick report

zryan · Dec 10, 2022 · West Island

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Quick report

Weather
stormy, warm
Ride Type
mellowSlopes
Stayed Away
alpineSlopes, convexSlopes, openTrees, steepSlopes
Riding Quality
Amazing
Snow Conditions
deepPowder
Avalanche Conditions
avalancheConditionSlab, avalancheConditionSnow, avalancheConditionSound

Sled skiing up on Begbie Shoulder today, things got electric! As we ascended the ridge we felt several large settlements. Warm temperatures throughout the day caused rapid settlement in the upper storm snow. We played it quite safe and stuck to lower-angle tree skiing, but any small steep rolls above 35 degrees produced small slab avalanches on a storm interface down 20 cm or a surface hoar layer down 40 cm. Nov 21st interface showed propagating results in snowpack tests down 110cm. Things really changed out there today, play safe!

Snowpack

Experienced a large settlement and cracking on a roll in trees while uptracking. Upon investigation, we got the following test results: ECTP5 down 20 cm on storm slab interface ECTP12 down 40 cm on surface hoar (Dec 5th) below recent storm snow ECTP22 down 110 cm on Nov 21st facet interface

Avalanche

Warm temps today caused rapid settlement in the upper storm snow. Anything above 35 degrees was failing on a storm interface down 20 cm or surface hoar (Dec 5th) down 40cm.

2 photos