Go, Dog. Go! (Kakwa Mar28-30)

We arrived to Kakwa with a forecast for low avalanche hazard at all elevations. 10cm of well settled snow, a crust on southerly slopes, a sturdy midpack and no signs of wind meant we felt confident we wouldn’t see much more that a few loose avalanches (loose wet of sunny slopes, loose dry in the shade). After verifying the 3x Low forecast, we made the shift to “Open Season” and felt good riding anything white. We spent the first day skiing. We hit up a large path on a solar aspect in the late morning just as it turned to corn. Afterwards we moved to a shaded slope to ski powder through the heat of the day. We kept to high elevations and northerly slopes where the snow surface was soft and dry for the next two days while sledding around. This was for travel and enjoyment rather than hazard. We kept to the simple group management rules like one on the slope and meeting in safe regroups but otherwise hit up many of the places we wouldn’t normally go. This dry spell has left a variety of snow surfaces like crusts sunny slopes and surface hoar on shady ones. This may spell bad news when snow finally falls, but for now its “Go, dog. Go!”