Riding the Beaver

We found that the hazard was greatest where the riding was poorest today up the Beaver. Normally the south-west slopes there are wind scoured by prevailing winds but recent north-east winds have loaded these slopes with a reactive wind slab that is sitting on weak feathery surface hoar crystals. We saw a few small wind slab avalanches that looked to be 1-2 days old. When we cut small steep south facing features at treeline with our sleds we got shooting cracks and small chunks of slab to release. We also hit rocks... The total snowpack on those slopes was only a meter or less with a lot of sugary depth hoar crystals that our sleds just sank right through to ground. North and east facing slopes had over 2.5m of firm compacted snow and while they didn't have any fresh powder on them were easy to travel on. The best riding was in sheltered trees where there was still soft snow to be found.