Exploring Summit Creek

Our party of five explored the Summit Creek area and slopes east of Taiya. We found approximately 15-20cm of powder sitting on last week's temperature crust, which was approximately 5cm thick. The crust was supportable, and snow below the crust was found to be soft and easily penetrated with a ski pole. The powder became more wind affected as we reached the alpine, with significant sastrugi. The sastrugi were big (see pictures) but easily penetrated while skiing up and down. Sastrugi were formed from a SW wind event. Blue sky and sunshine broke through the low cloud in the early afternoon, providing good light for some turns on mellow, well-supported terrain. There was no wind, apart from some very light NW winds at our high point of approximately 1600m. On the drive home we observed pinwheeling along the steep SE slopes of Fraser Ridge, likely due to afternoon solar effects.