Snake mountain area

Quick report

Weather

windy, sunny

Ride Type

mellowSlopes, alpineSlopes, sunnySlopes, openTrees

Stayed Away

steepSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

powder, windAffected

Day 1 of exploring a new area and a new snowpack. We headed into the snake creek zone for a sled ski trip. There’s an average snowpack height of 140cm at tree line and 40cm in the alpine. Low angle tree line slopes have 30cm+ of low density snow with little wind effect. After the cold temps, there’s lots of loose sugary facets in the snowpack compared to earlier this season. The alpine is heavily wind effected on all aspects. Steeper north west lee features had evidence of recent natural avalanche activity. At 1450m We found a preserved surface hoar layer down 20cm that gave easy results in compression tests. The sky was clear and the sun was out and packing a punch. Light south west winds in the morning ramped up through the afternoon resulting in snow transport at ridge top. Valley temps rose to -4c by mid afternoon. There’s a lot of variability in the snowpack, we managed our uncertainty by using low angle terrain for some great sled skiing. We chose to avoid steeper higher consequence terrain until we know more about the snowpack.