Zerippin and Alberta Clippin

Today we skied north of Terrace at Inbetweeners, travelling on west and southwest slopes at treeline and below. We had poor visibility, strong southwesterly winds in open areas and at ridgecrest, and continued snow throughout the day. We didn’t see any new avalanches but we didn’t see much! We avoided lee slopes (north and east facing slopes) where we suspect wind slabs have formed. On west facing slopes, near the top of treeline, we found 20 to 35 cm of soft slab over a stiffer older wind affected surface. It was easy to break off hand shears up to 35 cm deep at this interface, however we experienced no cracking or whumpfing. We found the late January rain crust 105 cm deep. We had good skiing in the trees in sheltered areas where winds had not effected the surface snow. We found 10 cm of new snow below treeline over a thin, breakable crust. This crust exists up to about 1000 m.