Fraser trees

Encountered variable snow conditions today with lots of wind affected snow from around 1050m up to 1150m and powder in the trees. We didn’t go any higher than 1150m because of the wind crust and the snow started to feel hollow underneath us. There is a wind affected crust on top of all that powder we were skiing on Dec 30. The best turns on this slope were below 1050m and in the trees (lots of fun pillows!). Moderate wind all day and mostly cloudy, flat light with some bursts of sunshine.

Wind varied between light and moderate throughout the day. Some variation in wind direction as well.

See attachments for photos of column test. We saw failures at 2 levels that broke the snow pack into 3 layers: - top layer = wind affected crust (10cm) - middle layer = 60 Cm of soft snow - bottom layer = solid, cohesive base layer Neither layer slid off column when failure cracks emerged. We pushed each layer off separately and fairly easily. Photo 1: surface wind layer, came off easily as a chunk when digging beside test column Photo 2: test column with 2 failure lines visible Photo 3: slide surface under surface wind layer. Soft fluffy snow. Photo 4: slide surface under layer of soft snow.