Coquihalla Lakes Ridge

Quick report

Weather

sunny

Ride Type

sunnySlopes, openTrees, mellowSlopes, convexSlopes, steepSlopes

Stayed Away

alpineSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

powder, crusty, heavy, wet

Avalanche Conditions

avalancheConditionTemp

-10 to start our day at the cars, sun exposure all day warmed up all sun exposed surfaces. We had it all, very nice soft pow in the shaded areas, crust in the late day as the sun angle got lower, and increasingly wet powder with a few hrs of direct sunlight. A freeze crust began to form at all elevations around 3pm that were sun exposed. Keep this in mind with the next snowstorm. Also to keep in mind, many sheltered areas will have a surface hoar layer that was all over the place this morning. Several ski cuts on convex rolls would crack some, but no sliding. Mid morning hand shears fractured the new snow (15cms) but this layer became quite stable by the afternoon and would not fracture planar in afternoon hand shears (it just crumbled with force applied). We dug a pit around 1500m, shovel shear pulled a slab about 45cms with moderate resistance. Compression test also broke this layer at 24. This appeared to be sitting on SH. A layer at 75cms broke on 2 compression tests, one at 17 and the second at 30. This was sitting on a facet layer. Other notes, we chose a south aspect today to avoid windslabs on north/northeast aspects. We could see LOTS of snow transport on surrounding higher peaks. Could see the north east bowl of Zoa and saw a half dozen or so tracks but no slides.

Weather

Max Temp

-2

Min Temp

-12

Wind Speed

windSpeedLight

Sky Condition

clear

New Snow24 Hours

15

Strong winds were obvious on higher peaks and ridges where we saw plenty of snow transport onto North and North east aspects.

Snowpack

Obs Type

point

Site Aspect

S, SE

Site Elevation

1500

Ski Penetration

10

Test Initiation

moderate

Site Elevation Band

tln

Surface Conditions

newSnow, surfaceHoar