Bastille Mountain Area

Quick report

Weather

cloudy, stormy, warm

Ride Type

alpineSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

windAffected, powder, heavy

Spent 5 days skiing through changing conditions as a +20cm of storm snow and cooling came in midway through our trip. In summary, snowpack was better bonded and more stable than I expected... so we kept dialing it up. At around 2350 m elevation, CT on east aspect at treeline, 27 degree slope (23 taps at 25 cm down, HS +120 cm) and ECT on west aspect, 42 degree slope (13 taps at 33 cm down, 27 taps at 65 cm down, both only partial propagation of about 50% of 90 cm block, HS 180 cm.). As one would expect, basal facets present a few cm from ground. Some surface hoar in meadow areas seen (the "sparkly" pic). At this elevation early Nov. rain crust was not prominent like I've seen elsewhere. Throughout trip pole probing, hand shears, cornice dropping, ski cuts, etc. only thing we got to move was sz 1 of recent storm slab on convex roll ski cutting. Although, pesky pocket wind slabs were encountered often, and we had to re-route several times our plans accordingly to avoid wind slabs (below powder). We skied pretty much everything before the storm, and dialed it back with the new snow (had one whumpf after storm on east aspect at treeline). Great skiing on fresh deep storm powder, especially on leeward side thanks to the light winds transporting fresh powder.