Mt.Fernie

Quick report

Weather

cold

Ride Type

steepSlopes, convexSlopes

Riding Quality

amazing

Snow Conditions

powder

Toured up the south face of Mt.Fernie from 1060m to ridgetop at 2000m. Lower elevations around 1500m and below are still quite aldery and shallow. Higher up we found no signs of recent wind effect, windslabs or storm slabs whatsoever. The snowpack was quite facetted and unconsolidated, with foot penetration being between 30-60cm deep, making the final bootpack up to the summit quite time consuming. We took a conservative route up sticking mostly to the ridge feature and avoiding start zones as much as possible. However finding no slab formation on the south aspect whatsoever, by the time we reached the summit we felt comfortable skiing a steep committing chute right off the top. Sluffing was sluggish and did not entrain much. The inversion cloud hovered around 1900m but we still had -15 C at 2000m. Well developed surface hoar (10mm+) growing on surface between 1500-1850m.