Rae Glacier

Quick report

wardsbd · May 23, 2024 · Highwood Pass

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Quick report

Weather
stormy, cloudy, warm
Ride Type
alpineSlopes
Riding Quality
good
Snow Conditions
powder, wet
Avalanche Conditions
avalancheConditionTemp

Biked 12.5 km to the elbow parking lot. Snow all the way from the parking to Elbow lake. Good travel moist snow most of the way up. Turned around at 2800m as the upper slopes were steep, thick to thin, and had graupel layer down 10cm, 0.5 to 1 cm thick that made it hard to skin. Good turns down on 2 cm of dry snow on a zipper crust. On our second run at 245pm the snow hard turned heavy and moist but still skied good. Height of snow 220cm at 2500m in the guts. At 2500m there was 25cm on a burly crust, the top 25cm had two crusts with upper giving easy hand shears. Higher up there was up to 70cm on the burly crust with no crusts. Lots of pin wheeling late in the afternoon. Off and on convective flurries kept things from getting to hot.