MacDonald West

Quick report

Weather

cloudy

Ride Type

openTrees, mellowSlopes, alpineSlopes

Stayed Away

steepSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

powder, crusty

Skied up Mac West to 2180m. Cloudy day with minimal wind, ca - 5. Generally good ski quality, boot pen ca 30cm but could feel harder snow below and slight wind effect up high. Below the big bench, a bit of sun crust you could avoid by skiing closer to the trees skiers left and felt like intermittent old avy debris in places, buried under ca 10-20cm. Many tracks, but still enough room for some fresh turns. Dug pit at 2150m, W-SW aspect, open trees at 29 degrees. HS 240cm. Fist to 35cm down, then within 10 cm, changed to finger and it was finger to bottom of pit which I dug to 135cm. At 135 cm down, CA 10cm wide facet layer, which I assume was the Feb 3 crust. Did CT test, with no results. This feeling of a layer below skiis at 35 correlated with what was felt when skiing. Didn't see any evidence of new slides/ instability when up there.