International Basin

We skied around the International Basin Jan 25-28. Overall the weather was sunny, with Saturday being a very warm day, and total new snow for the weekend was around 10 cm. Saturday the sun was blasting southern aspects, creating a little bit of sun crust on steep vertical south-facing features. Saturday night winds very strong and gusty. On Sunday we observed a natural size 1.5 avalanche on a steep wind-loaded north-facing slope. We dug pits each day with similar results. We found a weak layer consistently around 20-40 cm down, giving results in the medium to hard range in compression tests. We also found the basal facet layer next to the ground at one of our pits, at 120 cm, on a southern aspect. It was rotten. The other pits were not deep enough to observe that layer. Skiing conditions were good to very good except for Sunday when the wind had created a crust in the alpine. Tree skiing was consistently good and conditions were stable, although we did not venture into very steep terrain.