Good skiing on N aspect, lots of recent naturals
Quick reportabbi.chapman · Mar 15, 2025 · Cariboos
Quick report
- Weather
- cloudy, sunny
- Ride Type
- mellowSlopes, openTrees
- Stayed Away
- steepSlopes, sunnySlopes, convexSlopes, alpineSlopes
- Riding Quality
- good
- Snow Conditions
- powder, crusty
- Avalanche Conditions
- avalancheConditionSound, avalancheConditionTemp, avalancheConditionSlab
Skied Saturday and Sunday. East facing slope at 1650m skied terribly with a breakable solar crust, skinning up a south facing slope also had a thick crust. Didn’t touch any west facing slopes but would assume the same. North facing slopes at tree line (1950m-1650m) still skiing beautifully with 10-20cm ski pen, “bouncy” powder. Spot the feathered friend we found!
Snowpack
- Depth
- 200
- Obs Type
- point
- Site Aspect
- E
- Test Fracture
- resistant
- Site Elevation
- 1600
- Test Initiation
- easy
- Test Failure Depth
- 30
- Site Elevation Band
- btl
- Surface Conditions
- crust
- Test Failure Layer Crystal Types
- crust
Dug pit 130cm deep. Top 55cm felt right side up, starting with fist density and getting progressively most consolidated. About 55cm down is a 1 finger crust overlaying a layer of large facets overlaying another 2finger crust about 10cm thick. Below that sugary, unconsolidated snow. In column test, top 30cm of recent storm snow had an easy/medium result and was a sudden collapse. And a deep persistent layer about 100cm down had a hard result and was sudden planar (did not propagate in ECT though).
Avalanche
- Run Length
- 200
- Slab Width
- 500
- Trigger Type
- natural
- Avalanche Size
- 2.5
- Slab Thickness
- 200
- Start Zone Aspect
- NE, NW, N
- Avalanche Character
- persistentSlab, windSlab
- Number Of Avalanches
- 2-5
- Avalanche Observation
- moreThan48hrsAgo
- Start Zone Elevation Band
- tln, alp
- Avalanche Occurrence Datetime
- 2025-03-12T19:00:00.000Z
Observed evidence of large natural on NW slope at 1700m (photo). Crown appeared to be nearly 2m thick at some points. Appeared to have slid sometime after the large storm because the debris had only a dusting of new snow. Observed evidence of several other naturals on various N facing slopes at the same elevation band on steep, thin slopes. On Saturday afternoon during a connective flurry with lots of winds between the sunshine observed a size 2 natural on a very steep E slope - appeared to have been a windslab. On Sunday afternoon after a few hours of solar exposure, felt a large whumph while skiing across on a wide, well supported NE slope. Also observed lots of pinwheeling as the previously dry snow on this aspect started warming quickly.