South of Dunn Peak

Quick report

Weather

foggy, warm, wet, cloudy

Ride Type

openTrees, mellowSlopes, alpineSlopes

Stayed Away

convexSlopes, steepSlopes, cutBlocks

Riding Quality

ok

Snow Conditions

crusty, heavy, wet

Avalanche Conditions

avalancheConditionSnow, avalancheConditionSlab, avalancheConditionTemp, avalancheConditionSound

Lots of signs of instability, touchy conditions, several large settlements and whumphs with obvious fracture lines.Mostly stayed out of anything over 20 degrees, which kept us out of trouble, and enjoyed a good tour around the ridge tops. It alternated between snow and rain all weekend, with about 10-15 cm of snow falling Friday night, but temperatures remained generally mild, hovering around 0C. Mostly stayed snowy above 2000m, with a breakable film of a rain crust developing overnight on Friday. Below 2000m, snow gradually became wet concrete. At a pit dug Saturday afternoon at approx. 2000m, 25 degree South facing aspect, CT Moderate 13 SP failure on January crust/surface hoar combo, down ~45cm, which propagated across a 1m extended column. December layer, down ~1.5m, failed SP at CT Hard 23. Shovel Shear tests provided incredibly easy, "Dresser Drawer" results on the January Layer, and moderate, SP results on the December layer. Definitely a time to show some respect to the mountains!