Low Tide Gorge Ride

Quick report

Weather

cloudy

Ride Type

denseTrees, openTrees, steepSlopes

Stayed Away

alpineSlopes, convexSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

powder, windAffected

We headed up to the Gorge to check on wind slab development, and the early December surface hoar layer. Also, we were on the lookout for problematic basal facets, but we weren't surprised that we didn't find them at the elevation we reached (2000 m). We found a variety of wind affected surfaces on exposed treeline ridgetops, and some cracking around our skis, but no shooting cracks. We expect that at higher elevations in bigger features, the wind slab problem might be more concerning. On a north aspect, we found the surface hoar down 80 cm, and continuing to gain strength. It was unreactive to compression tests, possibly due to the crust sandwich 25 cm above it. We had decent ankle deep skiing down from the ridge in the trees, but as we got closer to 1500 m we really had to watch out for frozen tree bombs and barely buried logs, stumps and bushes.

Weather

Avg Temp

-2

Wind Speed

windSpeedModerate

Blowing Snow

light

Sky Condition

brokenClouds

Wind Direction

SE

Temperature Trend

rising

Precipitation Type

none

Snowpack

Depth

135

Obs Type

point

Site Aspect

N

Test Fracture

resistant

Site Elevation

2015

Ski Penetration

15

Test Initiation

hard

Foot Penetration

40

Test Failure Depth

25

Site Elevation Band

tln

Surface Conditions

variable

Test Failure Layer Crystal Types

stormSnow

The surface has a few cm of soft snow on top of a thin wind skin that wasn't noticable while skiing. Below that, 25 cm of settled snow sits on a 10 cm crust/frozen grains/crust sandwich. Early December surface hoar is down 80 cm and appears quite rounded and the crystals are starting to clump together. Generally dense, compacted snow down to ground, with some signs of old, rounding basal facets that didn't appear to be an avalanche problem in this location.