Bald Hills (Feb. 29)
SnowpackMatt Kennedy · Feb 29, 2020 · Maligne
Quick report
- Weather
- stormy, windy, warm
- Ride Type
- openTrees, mellowSlopes
- Stayed Away
- steepSlopes
- Riding Quality
- amazing
- Snow Conditions
- powder
We went into the newly opened Bald Hills area to check out conditions. The tree skiing was excellent, and thin, touchy, buried wind slabs were present at treeline. HS 250 at ~2170m, HST ~10-15, moderate wind transport throughout the day, 5cm accumulation on the skin track over 6 hours. Full profile to ground details in snowpack summary.
Weather
- Avg Temp
- -6
- Wind Speed
- windSpeedLight
- Blowing Snow
- light
- Sky Condition
- overcast
- Snowfall Rate
- 1
- Wind Direction
- SW
- Storm Snow Amount
- 10
- Precipitation Type
- snow
Observations at profile location at 11:00. Moderate winds and snow transport observed at ridge top, with conditions deteriorating and a stronger storm pulse into the afternoon.
Snowpack
- Depth
- 250
- Obs Type
- point
- Site Aspect
- NE
- Test Fracture
- resistant
- Site Elevation
- 2170
- Test Initiation
- easy
- Foot Penetration
- 25
- Test Failure Depth
- 10
- Site Elevation Band
- tln
- Surface Conditions
- newSnow
- Test Failure Layer Crystal Types
- other
28 degree, wind loaded, planer, NE slope at treeline. Upper pack consisted of around 30 cm of 5-10 cm layered wind slabs presenting repeatable easy, moderate, and hard resistant planer results. The mid-pack was mainly pencil harness rounding facets and facets, with two notable melt-freeze crusts up 96 and 116 cm. Basal facets (and developing depth hoar) was a 30 cm, 4F layer. CTV, CTE3 (RP) down 10 (thin buried wind slab below storm snow) CTM12,13 (RP) down 15 on DF CTH23,24 down 29 on DF DTV (RP) down 134 (possible operator error during isolation) on MFcr DTN down 154 on MFcr DTH26 (brk) down 220 on basal facets