Bonnington Range Steed Ht

Quick report

Weather

sunny, cold

Ride Type

openTrees, alpineSlopes, mellowSlopes, denseTrees

Riding Quality

terrible

Snow Conditions

crusty

Avalanche Conditions

avalancheConditionSound

Bonnington range Fri-Sat attempting the full traverse. Stayed at Steed Hut Friday night. Snow is absolutely awful potentially the worst survival skiing I’ve ever experienced. 3-6cm of light dry snow sitting on top of a ~1 inch thick layer of sheet ice. This layer is breakable only with force applied on steeper slopes. It was persistent on all aspects and all elevations on the traverse. Traversing back from steed cutting across ~30 degree alpine slopes heard significant whumpfing (and cracking) as we suspect surface hoar below the ice layer collapsed and the ice layer itself cracked and crumbled. No signs of avalanche or slabs as very little snow on top of this layer at the moment. Surface hoar building on the dry snow above the ice layer (3-6mm in places). All in all seems like this could be a very concerning layer once significant new snow is sitting on top of it. Concerns about conditions meant we bailed the traverse 2 days early.

Snowpack

Depth

2000

Obs Type

summary

Ski Penetration

8

Foot Penetration

35

Cracking Observed

1

Surface Conditions

newSnow

Whumpfing Observed

1