Cerise Creek early season

Quick report

Weather

cloudy, stormy, windy, cold, sunny

Ride Type

mellowSlopes, convexSlopes, alpineSlopes, sunnySlopes, denseTrees, openTrees

Stayed Away

steepSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

powder, windAffected

Avalanche Conditions

avalancheConditionSound

Spent 2 days at Cerise Ck. Thin coverage made access twice as long as usual, lots of alder. Snow depth increases rapidly from 1600 m and above but was still thin in places. Only skied E faces off of Motel 66 ridge from 1950 - 1650 m elevation. That aspect was wind loaded. Saturday night saw lots of NE wind transport and some ~10 cm of fresh. Of concern: - Whumpfing was common in sheltered or thin (e.g. rocky ridges) areas - 2 layers one at ~15 cm and one at around ~30 cm could be the reason for the above, hand pits showed cohesive wind slabs reacting on those two layers Because of that, we stayed away from steeps and thin areas. Skiing was fantastic on open areas that had sheltered from the wind. Exiting on treed slopes N of the cabin and on to the landslide was possible but lots of early hazards. The glacier appeared bare lookers left and high near the col.