Fraser Chutes

Quick report

Weather

windy, warm, cloudy, sunny

Ride Type

mellowSlopes

Stayed Away

alpineSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

windAffected, powder

Went and poked around Fraser Chutes yesterday. Temps around -5C with some in and out patches of blue sky. Snowpack is sitting around 80 cm in the forest. A firmer layer ~15cm from bottom was felt while pole probing on the skin track. We stopped near the edge and bottom of the first mellow open chute lookers right and up from the regular creek access to dig a pit on a ~25 degree slope with an east/northeast aspect. Found 80 cm of light fluffy snow sitting on top of a firm, large icier crystals layer about 2cm thick. Below that was loose facets to ground. Attempted an ECT but couldn’t properly isolate the test column at the thick layer. We observed another party remote trigger (~20m away) a wind loaded roll feature on the edge of the chute. A shallow crown about 5m long was observed and the snow that broke off from it slid about 2 m. We also observed a sizeable whumpf at treeline. Snow conditions above that looked mediocre and variable. The snow in the chutes proper was powdery and non wind affected and though these laps are short they were very good. We were also reminded of early season hazards (tree wells) while poking in the trees between chutes - even with the small trees of white pass these can be still be problematic.