Good Snow and Some Rocks

Quick report

Weather

warm, cloudy

Ride Type

denseTrees, openTrees, mellowSlopes

Stayed Away

alpineSlopes

Riding Quality

ok

Snow Conditions

windAffected, powder

Both last Sunday and this Sunday we skied reasonably sheltered east facing slopes on the south end of Highwood pass between 2400m and 2150m. We did not observe any recent natural or human triggered avalanche activity in that time. We had good views of the surrounding area. Last weekend we had cracking down about 15 cm very close to ridge top. We took a different approach to the same destination this weekend to avoid what we thought may be an increased wind slab hazard from the winds Thurs and Friday. We did note significant cornice growth in the area over the past week at roughly 2400m, and observed snow transport throughout the day today at ridge top. We did not observe any wind transport actively occurring below ridge top today. We noted wind slab and wind effect for about 100m down slope from the ridge top today. We did not have any cracking or whoomphing today, and we broke a lot of trail, but we also stayed away from the obvious wind effected areas. The start zones near ridge top were wind pressed and wind loaded, just like the bulletin said they would be. We did use the Avaluator and found it to be very accurate to what we were 'feeling' about the conditions. We felt the wind loading as we entered the alpine and got near ridge top put us into the red zone, which was more than we wanted so turned our skis downhill at that point. We did have the good fortune of some others using our skin track from last weekend, and subsequently center punching the 35° recently loaded start zone we thought may be problematic. Nothing slid, but we were happy to have some brave "slope testers" test the snow above where we were going to ski. The best skiing can be found between about 2300m and 2100m in sheltered SE slopes such as glades and open treed slopes. The ski quality of NE facing slopes has worsened in the past week with a good amount of wind effect in open terrain. Travel is good with 50 - 75cm of snow at treeline. The buried crust seems to help keep you off the rocks. There is only 15 cm of snow at the road at 2200m and downhill skinning was required because of the lack of snow at lower elevations. Everyone of us hit some rocks at some point. And there are many rock/tree/shrub/creek hazards to content with in this area/elevation band. I think there is more snow at Pocaterra Ridge and Highway 93, maybe try there to save your skis.