AST1 Snow Hunt

Quick report

dave.mustang · Dec 30, 2020 · Chic-Choc Mountains

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Quick report

Weather
stormy, warm, cloudy, sunny
Ride Type
mellowSlopes, denseTrees, convexSlopes, openTrees
Stayed Away
alpineSlopes, steepSlopes, convexSlopes
Riding Quality
Good
Snow Conditions
hard, deepPowder, windAffected, powder
Avalanche Conditions
avalancheConditionSnow

Found some good snow in the trees and Lee slopes of cutblocks in Calzone today. Our AST1 class chose that area to avoid potentially wind affected terrain and high-consequence slopes. We got several good views into alpine terrain and saw significant wind affect, but no new natural avalanches. Our pit found the Dec 7 crust down about 65 cm, but it was fairly well bonded. We got compression tests to fail in the moderate range and extended column tests to fail in the hard range. (ECTP 22 SP down 65 FC over crust) We didn’t see any signs of instability anywhere we rode, and felt we had a pretty stable snowpack. Day was warm, about -3 after lunch and snowing in the afternoon. No wind.