Belle Southwest

Quick report

Weather

cloudy, warm

Ride Type

openTrees, mellowSlopes

Stayed Away

alpineSlopes, steepSlopes, sunnySlopes

Riding Quality

ok

Snow Conditions

hard

Riding was ok, was mostly a teaching day for beginners. About 8cm of fresh snow on top of a well bonded snowpack, a little hard underneath but still fun and super easy to skin up. Had a failure in the column CTM-15 at 105cm on what appears to be a rain crust. It was a resistant failure and the column did not drop or slide off, it just dropped and slid about an inch. No other failure the rest of the compression test. A number of size 1 pint release were noted on the big SE facing slopes that were 50-100m in length.

Weather

Avg Temp

-3

Wind Speed

windSpeedLight

Blowing Snow

light

Sky Condition

brokenClouds

Wind Direction

SE

New Snow24 Hours

5

Temperature Trend

steady

Precipitation Type

none

Snowpack

Depth

115

Obs Type

point

Site Aspect

SW

Test Fracture

resistant

Ski Penetration

5

Test Initiation

moderate

Foot Penetration

15

Test Failure Depth

105

Site Elevation Band

alp

Surface Conditions

variable

Test Failure Layer Crystal Types

crust

Current conditions were pretty confidence inspiring in the old burn. Still stayed away from any wind loading or terrain traps. 8cm of fresh snow on top of a seemingly well bonded snowpack. Finger or pen all the way down below the fresh fist on top. The only concern was the rain crust at 105cm down that broke at CTM 15, the column did not slide off but it was a significant drop. No other signs of instability for the rest of the test. There were small point release size 1’s on the SE facing bigger slopes in the same valley that ran about 50-100m.