Mont Lyall La J-F Michaud
Quick reportliam.c.callahan · Jan 10, 2026 · Chic-Chocs
Quick report
- Weather
- cloudy, windy
- Ride Type
- alpineSlopes, denseTrees, openTrees
- Stayed Away
- convexSlopes
- Riding Quality
- amazing
- Snow Conditions
- powder, windAffected
- Avalanche Conditions
- avalancheConditionSnow
See snowpack report for full breakdown.
Snowpack
- Depth
- 150
- Obs Type
- summary
- Site Aspect
- NE
- Site Elevation
- 850
- Site Elevation Band
- alp, btl, tln
- Surface Conditions
- newSnow
- Whumpfing Observed
- 1
- Test Failure Layer Crystal Types
- crust, facets, other
We skinned up the Route Lavoie trail on Mont Lyall with an approximately 0900 start. Conditions were highly variable on the way up ranging from fresh powder, strong over weak slab formation, and isolated cracks while skinning. We performed multiple hand-shear tests at varying elevations which showed some consolidation on top of a slab/facet layer roughly 20cm down in the mid elevation of the mountain. As we got higher these slabs seemed to become more buried under fresh snow. At the top of the ascent we dug a pit at the beginning of La J-F Michaud. As pictured, we had a snow depth in the pit of 135cm. We did a bit more probing after and found depths as high as 185cm. We found the snowpack to have 40cm of fist, 5cm of 1 finger, 25cm of pencil, and then 8cm more of 1 finger before returning to pencil for the rest of what we could access. Unfortunately we did not take a picture of that test, nor did we perform a compression test or ECT. We descended La J-F Michaud with great snow conditions and no obvious signs of instability on the way down in the snowfield or trees. We then traversed to the Sortie trail and found more great snow conditions outside of the avalanche terrain.