Chickadee valley
Quick reportwill.byleveld · Jan 7, 2026 · Lake Louise
Quick report
- Weather
- sunny, cloudy
- Ride Type
- sunnySlopes, convexSlopes, mellowSlopes, openTrees
- Stayed Away
- alpineSlopes, steepSlopes
- Riding Quality
- amazing
- Snow Conditions
- powder, deepPowder
- Avalanche Conditions
- avalancheConditionSlab
Went out into chickadee valley today to see what the conditions were up to. We didn’t see or feel any wind slab on the Avy path we skied on chickadee Peak although we stayed below treeline peaking at just over 2000m. Overall great ski conditions in the valley with little to no wind effect on the lower portions of the mountain and avi path. We did observe a couple avalanches on Mt Whymper that likely slid in the past few days due to wind loading and saw wind effect from a distance at the end of the valley. There was lots of snow transport off the peaks but very little wind down low.
Snowpack
- Depth
- 155
- Obs Type
- summary
- Site Aspect
- S
- Test Fracture
- unevenBreak
- Site Elevation
- 1850
- Test Initiation
- moderate
- Test Failure Depth
- 35
- Site Elevation Band
- btl
- Surface Conditions
- newSnow
- Test Failure Layer Crystal Types
- crust
Dug a pit near the bottom of the first avy Path on Mt chickadee SE. Had an uneven break at roughly 35cm, our guess was the new storm snow hasn’t yet bonded to the sun crust from last week or surface hoar from a couple days ago. Otherwise no results in the column test or ECT. The December 15th melt freeze crust failed at roughly 90cm only when we pulled on it after the test with moderate force but didn’t pop when conducting the ect or column test at this location. The facet layer nearer to the ground was present but largely unresponsive.