Blacksmith Ridge Trees

Quick report

Weather

sunny, cold

Ride Type

mellowSlopes, denseTrees

Stayed Away

steepSlopes, convexSlopes, alpineSlopes, openTrees

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

powder

Avalanche Conditions

avalancheConditionSnow, avalancheConditionSlab, avalancheConditionSound

Went to Blacksmith to have a look at the snowpack. Final ascent on the top (2180m) saw us trigger 2-3 remote releases from size 0.5-1 from about 15m away, crown appeared 40-50cm, but they didn’t run far (approx 10m before getting stopped by trees). We dug a pit easily found the storm slab (50cm thick) poorly bonded to basically 80cm of facets in various densities and states of decay. Compression test saw the storm slab slide readily on the twelfth strike. Give that, we opted to ski the trees further skiers right, which are ever so slightly mellower than the drainage. Lovely turns down with no signs of snowpack movement as we skied. Sun was out most of the day and it warmed to -8.