Stormy Strathcona

Quick report

Weather

warm, wet, stormy, cloudy, foggy

Ride Type

denseTrees, openTrees, mellowSlopes, steepSlopes, convexSlopes

Stayed Away

alpineSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

powder, crusty, wet

Avalanche Conditions

avalancheConditionSound

We headed to the Cruickshank/Castlecrag zone today for a quick mid-Island 'core sample' of the storm. Sliding on snow started from 12.5km on the East Fork, ie. bottom of the first switchback. There were a couple short rocky patches on the road being covered up with 2cm per hour snowfall all day. Skinning up in the trees we found about 10 cm of new snow on yesterday's melt freeze crust, which was mostly breakable but somewhat supportive in open areas. It was possible to stomp through it for better purchase instead of slipping and washing out on steeper steps. As we climbed, we got an inkling of a thin storm slab forming with skin track corners sliding on the crust; this increased a bit as we reached treeline. Surprisingly, what seemed like a pretty touchy little storm slab at times didn't really perform in the couple of ski cuts we tried on the way down. We decided against an alpine push due to low visibility, but suspect we would have seen more reactivity up there in the wind. The buried crust was still a bit annoying on the way down, but hey! It's still snowing! 😃