Thunder Meadows

Quick report

Weather

windy

Ride Type

openTrees, mellowSlopes, denseTrees

Stayed Away

convexSlopes, alpineSlopes, steepSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

windAffected, powder, crusty

Avalanche Conditions

avalancheConditionSnow

Staying at Thunder Meadows on January 30th. Walk in through cabin was crusty and tough to get comfortable footing, but safe to get up to the hut. Saw some surface hoar down by lizard creek but nothing once we left Island Lake Road. Conditions around the hut were quite variable due to wind moving snow around. On January 31st we awoke to about 25cm of new snow, but the wind overnight moved it around as well. The slope north of the hut (Treed Slope I believe) had a very shallow snowpack west of the lake, with mostly visible rock despite all the new snow. Climbing up from the lake and to the west, we found snow anywhere from 5cm to 35cm on top of a crust, mostly unreactive apart from one crack and some sluffing of the top 3-5 cms on steeper pitches. Exit into Cabin Bowl was carefully executed due to flat light and potentially wind slabs on convex rolls. Once into cabin, the mellow slope straight down the middle to the top of the gully was fantastic skiing, probably around 25cm of medium density snow and very little wind affect. Bottom of the bowl was difficult to navigate even with the new snow as the crust is quite boilerplate and sluffing snow.