IAG AST1, Knucklehead Winter Recreation group, Powell River

Quick report

Helene · Mar 12, 2023 · Powell River

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Quick report

Weather
stormy, windy
Ride Type
mellowSlopes, openTrees, sunnySlopes
Stayed Away
alpineSlopes, convexSlopes, steepSlopes
Snow Conditions
deepPowder
Avalanche Conditions
avalancheConditionSnow

Weather

Typical spring conditions, sun, clouds, strong and gusty winds, also a lot of graupel in the precipitation

Snowpack

CTM(12) down 11cm on slight sun crust and pp's, CTM(15) down 25 on small surface hoar, CTH(21) down 35 cm on pp's, CTH(26) down 60 on small facets on thin crust. There's another very significant temperature crust down 100cm, about 4 cm thick, but starting to crumble and no amount of shear and hard burping got anything going. Snowpack this close to the Coast (on the solar aspects) is fairly well settled. However, SE wind was blowing like stink all night and during the day and surely would have created significant wind slabs and cornice build up. The avalanche problems here today in the backcountry of Powell River would have been less the storm slab but much more the wind slab problem on NW, N and NE aspects. GREAT powder on south facing aspect from last night's 15 cm HN.