north shore avalanche hunting

We spent the day in the Cypress backcountry investigating how 40 to 80 cm of snow is bonding to the underlying crust/facet combination. We were pretty conservative with our travel. We used ridges and ribs to largely stay out of avalanche terrain. We saw recent human triggered and/or natural avalanche activity including debris piles that looked less than 24 hours old. Most avalanche activity was in steep treed terrain. As we traveled, we stomped on every small feature we could find. Some slopes did not produce any activity while others produced large settlements, shooting cracks and avalanches, but propagation was limited to about 10 meters. We think that this weak layer is in the process of healing, but it’s doing so far slower than usual for the region.

CTH RP, ECTX