December farm weekend
AvalancheSpaggie · Dec 12, 2021 · McGregor
Quick report
- Weather
- windy, cloudy
- Ride Type
- mellowSlopes, denseTrees, openTrees
- Stayed Away
- convexSlopes, alpineSlopes, steepSlopes
- Riding Quality
- good
- Snow Conditions
- deepPowder, windAffected, powder
- Avalanche Conditions
- avalancheConditionSnow
headed up to the farm cabin for the weekend on friday dec 10th until sunday december 12th. Great riding after a heck of an approach. significant new snow in the trees at lower elevation made for a very long arduous approach to the cabin. easily waist deep trailbreaking (80cm of unconsolidated snow) until above treeline, where snow seemed to be more set up and skis only sank about 25cm. wind was really blasting at higher elevations so we skied mellow slopes that were sheltered by some of the higher ridges and found some great pockets of good snow but definately worth being cautious of wind loading on all aspects in the farm alpine right now. below treeline all that snow we suffered through made for a great ski out, until I blew out my toe piece and had to bootpack the last km. definately good conditions below treeline until you hit the exposed alder maybe 200m above the parking lot all in all 11/10 trip
Weather
- Avg Temp
- -6
- Max Temp
- -3
- Min Temp
- -10
- Wind Speed
- windSpeedModerate
- Blowing Snow
- moderate
- Sky Condition
- overcast
- Wind Direction
- N
- Storm Snow Amount
- 30
- Temperature Trend
- steady
- Precipitation Type
- snow
fairly regular checks of thermometer at cabin showed steady daytime temps of around -4 to -6 and nighttime temps around -10 significant wind at higher elevation we only got on one higher ridge and there was heavy wind loading at ridgetop. off and on precipitation throughout entire weekend with total accumulation of roughly 10cm Dec 10-12 with a prior storm depositing roughly 25-30cm of new snow in alpine probably the day prior to arrival.
Snowpack
- Depth
- 230
- Obs Type
- point
- Site Aspect
- NE
- Test Fracture
- unevenBreak
- Site Elevation
- 1600
- Ski Penetration
- 25
- Foot Penetration
- 80
- Test Failure Depth
- 45
- Site Elevation Band
- tln
- Surface Conditions
- newSnow
- Test Failure Layer Crystal Types
- stormSnow
dug a pit on a fairly sheltered NE slope approx 25-30 degrees slope angle: air temp was roughly -3 c observed layers of significance at: 25cm- storm snow fist hardness 25cm below 4 finger hardness 95cm and below 1 finger hardness visibly distinct weak layers only a few cm thickness at 70 cm and 85cm. unsure of nature if layers, both one finger hardness column test showed results at 7 soft at the 25cm layer, slab was still very poorly consolidated and was not a full break crack appeared at 45cm at 5 medium, sheared partially at 10 medium crack at 70cm layer at 9hard performed an ECT and had no results propogate
Avalanche
- Run Length
- 100
- Slab Width
- 50
- Trigger Type
- natural
- Avalanche Size
- 2.5
- Start Zone Aspect
- SE
- Start Zone Incline
- 45
- Number Of Avalanches
- 1
- Avalanche Occurrence Datetime
- 2021-12-11T12:00:00
one significant natural size 2-2.5 avalanche off an alpine peak was visible at a distance of a few km NEE from farm cabin. path looked to be approx 100m in length and a crown roughly 50 to 60m across. too far away to tell depth with any certainty, but slide left exposed rock in the start zone. slope approx 45 degrees and SE facing. could not get a good picture at time of observation due to limited visibility. assumed to have ripped sometime during saturday dec 11th as it was not visible on approach to cabin friday