The Onion - Babine Mountains

Quick report

Weather

sunny

Ride Type

sunnySlopes, openTrees, mellowSlopes, alpineSlopes

Stayed Away

steepSlopes, convexSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

powder, windAffected

Obs from an AST Sled course today: Weather: -5c, light - moderate SE winds, sunny w valley fog Avalanches: nothing observed from past 48 hrs+ Snowpack: Surface hoar to 10mm up to treeline growing past 3 days. Alpine areas are heavily wind effected from previous winds, leaving areas of scoured, heavily textured, and hard slabs in lee features. A quick test pit on a NW aspect at treeline showed an average snowpack of 90cm. Under the surface hoar is 20cm of old storm snow, then a thin raincrust, with the Dec 6 surface hoar (2-3mm) below that This gives variable moderate, sudden shears. Down 50cm is the Nov Crust/Facet layer, giving hard, sudden drop fracture character results. A few sled cuts and small slope tests gave no results, but these were limited to one spot only. Our main riding concern was for areas of shallow snowpack trigger points on steep slopes, and windloaded convex terrain features. The current surface hoar will be the next problem if its buried intact,