Ogden Benches
Quick reportjackvanlierop3807 · Jan 23, 2025 · Waterton Lakes
Quick report
- Weather
- windy, cloudy, stormy
- Ride Type
- convexSlopes, sunnySlopes
- Stayed Away
- steepSlopes, alpineSlopes
- Riding Quality
- amazing
- Snow Conditions
- powder
- Avalanche Conditions
- avalancheConditionSlab
Rode Ogden Benches today. Stellar skiing conditions with up to 10cm extremely light fist- snow on top of another 10cm of fist and very few tracks higher up. Winds were light gusting moderate from the SW and could hear much stronger winds at ridge top with lots of blowing snow, snowing s-1 to s1 all day. This was isolated to the west of the divide with no new snow on the Alberta side. Dug a test pit at 2250m on a south aspect. Snowpack was right side up and with a dense 1 finger midpack supportive to boots. HS 155cm. ECTN and no results on 1 shovel shear and one rp failure down 15 on the 1 finger midpack in the second shovel shear.
Avalanche
- Trigger Type
- natural
- Wind Exposure
- leeSlope
- Avalanche Size
- 2
- Start Zone Aspect
- E, SE, NE
- Vegetation Cover
- openSlope
- Avalanche Character
- looseDry, corniceOnly
- Number Of Avalanches
- 11-50
- Start Zone Elevation
- 2800
- Avalanche Observation
- 12hrsAgo
- Weak Layer Crystal Type
- stormSnow
- Start Zone Elevation Band
- alp
- Avalanche Occurrence Datetime
- 2025-01-23T19:00:00.014Z
Witnesses numerous size 1-1.5 loose dry avalanches on the extreme east facing terrain on Moun Ogden above the benches. At least two size two cornice failures ripping from ridge top. Didn't pull anything on the slope below and quickly arrested in less extreme terrain. Also heard from another party that phantom was sluffing heavily and turned them around. Also got one stubborn result off a ski cut on a small steep and loaded slope at treeline on the bench. 10cm deep, 7m wide, ran 8m.