Hunting for Sheltered Riding and Buried Crust
Quick reportAvCan Northwest · Feb 6, 2025 · Purcells
Quick report
- Weather
- sunny
- Ride Type
- mellowSlopes, openTrees, sunnySlopes
- Stayed Away
- alpineSlopes
- Riding Quality
- good
- Snow Conditions
- crusty, powder, windAffected
We had a beautiful day at Silvern Lakes with clear skies, calm winds, and more mild temperatures due to an inversion. Some soft turn can be found in sheltered areas at treeline. We observed a few previous wind slab avalanches (size 1.5-2) in alpine terrain on an East aspect. We took note that they did not step down to deeper layers in the snowpack. See "Snowpack" tab for more details on conditions.
Snowpack
- Depth
- 125
- Obs Type
- point
- Site Aspect
- W
- Test Fracture
- sudden
- Site Elevation
- 1530
- Test Initiation
- moderate
- Foot Penetration
- 20
- Test Failure Depth
- 62
- Site Elevation Band
- tln
- Surface Conditions
- newSnow, surfaceHoar
- Test Failure Layer Crystal Types
- facets
We observed two crusts in the snowpack. One below our recent snow from last week's storms (late-January crust) and the curst from early-December's rain. Recent snow above the late-January curst is faceting with clear skies, cold temperatures, and falling winds. We suspect this crust may make it less likely to trigger avalanches on the facets above the early-December curst at treeline, but we expect it is less prevalent in the alpine. It likely does not exist on alpine northerly aspects. We will continue to investigate the distribution of this newer crust and how it may influence the likelihood of triggering avalanches on the early-Dec layer.