Observation: Public

Observation Details

Triggered Avalanches

Signs of Unstable Snow

Observations

Terrain: Short tour around Edith's Creek and Mazama Ridge today. We wanted to avoid very large avalanche paths like those near Sluskin Falls and even the S face of Panorama Pt.

Avalanche: other than the small wind slab we intentionally triggered. No new avalanches were seen.

Snowpack: About 8-10" (20-25cm) of new snow over the most recent crust (3/5). We found this crust to be largely supportable. A thin and friable ice crust down 6-8" within the new snow produced some isolated cracking as we broke trail. The upper snowpack consists of alternating layers of small rounded grains and strong melt-forms or melt-freeze crusts. We could easily identify the 2/23 AR layer generally down 4-5 ' (120-150cm) and the mid-Jan facet/crust down 10+' (320cm). We did not test the mid-Jan layer today.

Lots of wind transport near exposed ridges. Some slopes formed deep drifts 12-15" (30-45cm) deep and other slopes were scoured to the 3/5 crust.

Weather: Obscured to overcast skies with very light to occasionally moderate snowfall. Moderate SSW winds with light to moderate blowing snow. Some very brief breaks in the clouds were observed.