Helen Shoulder burnt trees

Snowpack

Briony Williamson · Dec 25, 2019 · East Side 93N

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Quick report

Weather: sunny
Ride Type: sunnySlopes, openTrees, mellowSlopes
Stayed Away: convexSlopes, steepSlopes
Riding Quality: good
Snow Conditions: powder

Skied 2 laps on the Helen Shoulder burned trees and had surprisingly good conditions and turns. Dug a pit at 2223m S185 direction and 26 degree slope angle. Two columns 1m apart had a bit of a different 0-30cm make up. No result on the 109cm column, CT27 on the other down 60cm on the 5cm thick facet layer above the crust. Based on this we kept skinning up and skied a 25ish degree slope on the skiers left burned trees - skied the open section to the right a no signs of instability skiing - breaking trail 30cm ski penetration and basically full depth boot penetration. Skinned back up the shoulder burned trees and tried the next line from the ridge below the sitting bull avoiding any rolls and again had a great ski with no signs of instability. Temp warmed up in the sun we were skinning in thin layers and were warm but didn’t notice an affect on the snowpack. Some surface hoar around treeline also present. Some wind affect on the ridge but very isolated and thin breakable slab. Line one red line, line 2 purple.

Snowpack

Depth: 109
Obs Type: point
Site Aspect: S
Test Fracture: sudden
Ski Penetration: 30
Test Initiation: hard
Foot Penetration: 100
Test Failure Depth: 27
Site Elevation Band: tln
Surface Conditions: newSnow
Test Failure Layer Crystal Types: facets

Column 1 HS 109cm 0-5cm faceting 5-30 consolidated Maybe starting to facet? 30-40 crust/facets/crust 40-45 facets 45-109 consolidating (45-70 2 fingers, 70-80 4 fingers, 80-109 fist penetration - right way up) No result on this column Column 2 1m away HS 95cm 0-25cm facets 25-30cm crust - facets - crust - facets - crust 30-35cm facets 35-95cm consolidating (35-50 2 fingers, 50-70 4 fingers, 70-95 fist - right way up) CT27 - 7th shoulder tap on the 30-35cm crust layer (60cm down) planar