Fraser Chutes - fun snow down low / thin slabs up high
Quick reportesker.norman · Dec 21, 2024 · White Pass West
Quick report
- Weather
- cloudy
- Ride Type
- convexSlopes, mellowSlopes, denseTrees, openTrees
- Stayed Away
- steepSlopes, alpineSlopes
- Riding Quality
- good
- Snow Conditions
- powder, windAffected
Great conditions below 1250m (+/-). Conditions as reported by field team - approx. 20cm powder sitting on top of a supportive crust. Leaving tree line, witnessed increased instances of reactive small wind slabs, 5-8cm thick, loosely consolidated.
Snowpack
- Depth
- 115
- Obs Type
- summary
- Site Aspect
- SE
- Cracking Observed
- 1
- Site Elevation Band
- tln, btl
- Surface Conditions
- newSnow, crust
Lower down (below 1200m) conditions were beautiful skiing and riding. 20cm of powder on a supportive crust - made for great turns! As we reached treeline, we noticed more pockets of wind slab in exposed areas, with some minor crack propagation (1-2 meters). We stopped at 1290m for our first transition and dug a hasty pit. This confirmed that above the rain crust (down 20cm) there was loose snow topped with pockets of lightly consolidated windslabs ranging from 5-8cm thick. On our second, lap we continued up a bit further to a maximum of 1351m. Up here, the snowpack was variable in depth - though mostly shallow and wind affected - with many exposed rocks. With the shallow conditions and windslabs, we used this elevation band as a lower angle traverse - avoiding some steeper slopes below, that sat above a terrain trap. Overall the snowpack felt relatively safe and stable - however it was very clear how even a small windslab in the wrong location could still have some decent consequences.