Upside down delight.

Quick report

jamesminifie · Mar 18, 2023 · Kootenay

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Quick report

Weather
cloudy, sunny, warm
Ride Type
alpineSlopes, mellowSlopes, openTrees
Stayed Away
steepSlopes, sunnySlopes
Riding Quality
Good
Snow Conditions
heavy, powder
Avalanche Conditions
avalancheConditionSnow, avalancheConditionTemp

Well. We got a lot of snow and then it got warm and windy and the it went a little upside down. That is, it turned a little stiff on top and remained soft below. This made for challenging travel conditions on sleds and lots of digging. Once we got off the sleds and started walking in sheltered terrain on west and north facing aspects things got a little nicer. The trail breaking was real but the skiing was actually decent. We stayed on supported slopes below 35 degrees away from terrain traps in order to give the new storm slab some time to bond to the firm surfaces and facets below it. That being said, we did not see any new avalanches which was somewhat surprising. I pulled multiple hand shears on the way up and found the storm slab to be 30-50cm thick and giving resistant planar results on old wind hammered/facetted surfaces.

3 photos