jmckay

Mods like to play God so this is the last post to this site

Post deleted by jmckay

It is sort of trivial so lets rotate the province, lets do Quebec/Canada next mounth and Nanuvet/Canada Yukon and so on and so on the following. I know that the province is just above washington (I think) so it may be tha only one anybody has ever heard of.

Rupert Wedgwood and I spent the last 4 days (Jan 16-19) with a Warden School in Roger's Pass skiing off Mt. Fidelity. The snowpack in the area is approximately 250cm-300cm and very well settled with no significant layers in the lower snowpack. On January 16th the surface hoar was buried by about 15 cm of very low density (20-30 kg/m3) cold dendrites that mixed right into the predominately needle shaped surface hoar crystals. This surface was sluffing fast and far but not slabbing at all except on ridgecrests in the alpine where a thin wind slab formed on the immediate lee features only. About 20cm of denser (70-100 kg/m3) fell on the night of the 18th and morning of the 19th creating an unstable upside down thin soft slab. The denser snow was failing naturally on all steep rolls and banks but was only failing at the dense/less dense interface and not digging down to the Jan 16 layer. As the storm snow settles some more, the Jan 16 layer will likely become the active layer, but due to the nature of the surface hoar and the way it was buried, it will probably not be a long-term persistent weakness. It will definitely require some watching in the short term, however. With the forecast for a couple of low intensity storms and warming temperatures, conditions will be ripe for a skier triggerable slab condition. Brad White Mountain Guide _______________________________________________ These observations and opinions are those of the person who submitted them. The ACMG and its members take no responsibility for errors, omissions, or lapses in continuity. Conditions differ greatly over time and space due to the variable nature of mountain weather and terrain. Application of this information provides no guarantee of increased safety. Do not use the Mountain Conditions Report as the sole factor in planning trips or making decisions in the field. Please check out http://acmg.ca/mcr for more information. Pass

lets drop the Brit columbia for western canada

Here is some thing that you do not see everyday. The last couple days the park wardens have been digging out a couple bodies from a collapsed snow shelter. Personally this is a first for me though Lisa say's ? she has heard of this before. I have woken up with the roof being 3 inches away from my perfect roman nose. The night before it was 18 inches away. This is the first time that I have heard of anyone dieing in a collapsed snow cave been there done that Mckay

Matt Mueller and I enjoyed a slog-alicious day on the Wapta (Jan 16). We did the so-called "mini" Wapta from Bow Lake to Peyto Lake. Weather at Bow Lake at 8:15am was -14 C with broken skies and light west wind. On the Wapta itself the wind was moderate to strong also from the west. Most of the track to Bow Hut was blown over but trail breaking was easy on stiff wind crust. Above Bow Hut on the glacier, 1 cm of snow over a stiff crust made for easy travel. Ski quality down the Peyto Glacier was variable with a combination of half-decent dust-on-crust turns interspersed with difficult breakable crust. The Peyto Glacier has good snow coverage down the middle. The crevasse sections are obvious and easy to avoid. Once off the glacier, we boot packed up wind scoured moraine past the glaciology station then were able to ski crusty snow down the moraines to the lake. Good travel on Peyto Lake with 5cm of snow over the ice but once in the trees we floundered in bottomless facets back up to the highway. All in all, a fine day of touring but not the place to go if good pow turns are what you desire. Sean Isaac Assistant Alpine Guide

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Took a mid day jaunt up and down Evening ridge, above the access road to Whitewater ski area. Nice and sunny and temperatures steady near -12 C. I dug a pit in an open area below treeline at 1580m (5200'), facing SW. Some easy compression test results down 10cm above and below a thin (2mm) crust were not a big concern, being shallow and underlying only loose powder snow. The surface hoar buried on new year's day was found 55cm below the surface, not reactive to my first 2 column tests, and shearing reluctantly in the hard range on the third try. Ski penetration was 15-20cm, Ski quality and snow stability was good, all in all a sweet little tour. Joel McBurney Ski Guide _________________________________________________________________ Share your opinion and enter to win! Please complete this survey to enter into a draw for a grand prize of $500 or one of twenty $50 cash prizes. http://www.youthographyinsiders.com/R.aspx?a=116 _______________________________________________ These observations and opinions are those of the person who submitted them. The ACMG and its members take no responsibility for errors, omissions, or lapses in continuity. Conditions differ greatly over time and space due to the variable nature of mountain weather and terrain. Application of this information provides no guarantee of increased safety. Do not use the Mountain Conditions Report as the sole factor in planning trips or making decisions in the field. Please check out http://acmg.ca/mcr for more information.

Louise Falls Jan 12th: Very cold and brittle. The left side of the pillar was well hooked out. Jeff Relph tried the right side the same day, and found the ice to be extremely hard...and noted it was steeper than the left as well. The last pitch was quite wet. Weeping Wall Jan 13th: Very fragile surface conditions. Lots of hacking through eggshell like surface to get placements. We came down after starting up pitch 3. Went up Sniveling Gulley afterwards. Waste deep trail breaking between ice pitches (low density snow). The last pitch had similar qualities to Left Hand....lots of chopping through ice layers for placements. Guiness Gulley Jan 14th: Heavy trail breaking up to the climb through low density snow. Once again the ice quality was very poor, and very similar to the weeping wall. Quality of pitch 3 is unknown (probably poor) as the first 2 pitches were quite time consuming. Temperatures were warming to -17 on Guinness Gulley today. Aaron Beardmore Mountain Guide ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. _______________________________________________ These observations and opinions are those of the person who submitted them. The ACMG and its members take no responsibility for errors, omissions, or lapses in continuity. Conditions differ greatly over time and space due to the variable nature of mountain weather and terrain. Application of this information provides no guarantee of increased safety. Do not use the Mountain Conditions Report as the sole factor in planning trips or making decisions in the field. Please check out http://acmg.ca/mcr for more information.

Skiing in the Fernie ski area "near country" for the last week. When I left there was still a fair amount of wind effect on all aspects due to the southerly winds during the storm and northerly winds when the arctic air moved in. These variable winds formed atypical loading patterns, leaving bits of hard wind slab all over the place. However, these slabs never seemed very reactive to skis and only large loads such as cornice falls were triggering them earlier in the week. That said, there were large cornices looming over most NE slopes. When I left on Saturday the thinking was that the wind slabs were weakening with the cold temperatures and that they are less likely to propagate as a result. In some north aspect areas there was also a surface hoar layer buried about 70cm down that was generally unreactive to tests. South slopes had plenty of buried crusts. The November crust was not widespread in Fernie and as a result the area was not included in the recent CAA avalanche warning. We were avoiding areas with large cornices above, thinner snowpack areas, and unsupported terrain. Mark Klassen Mountain Guide _______________________________________________ These observations and opinions are those of the person who submitted them. The ACMG and its members take no responsibility for errors, omissions, or lapses in continuity. Conditions differ greatly over time and space due to the variable nature of mountain weather and terrain. Application of this information provides no guarantee of increased safety. Do not use the Mountain Conditions Report as the sole factor in planning trips or making decisions in the field. Please check out http://acmg.ca/mcr for more information.

Skied to the upper end of Hospital Bowl today to do a profile to ground. Temperatures were -18 at 2540 meters, with light wind, and sunshine. Of note, there is an easy shear down 25cm within the storm snow (sudden collapse), however the surface slab does not yet seem cohesive enough to propagate - yet. The mid-pack was very strong, however the rain crust from November is still persisting. Although shears are hard, they are clean and fast when they do fail. Heavy loads such as cornice fall might be enough to propagate large avalanches on this layer still. The snowpack has settled considerably, from nearly hip deep last week, to boot top today. Syl Forest Mountain Guide. _______________________________________________ These observations and opinions are those of the person who submitted them. The ACMG and its members take no responsibility for errors, omissions, or lapses in continuity. Conditions differ greatly over time and space due to the variable nature of mountain weather and terrain. Application of this information provides no guarantee of increased safety. Do not use the Mountain Conditions Report as the sole factor in planning trips or making decisions in the field. Please check out http://acmg.ca/mcr for more information.

From Dec 30 to Jan 13 Icefall lodge received 186 cm mainly in 20 cm intervals. The snow quality was amazing though made for difficult travel at times. The Snowpack upon arrival was found to be well settled and stable. There were some instabilities in storm snow interfaces earlier in the week that were subsequently strengthened through settling and bonding. Throughout the 2 week period we only saw evidence of climax avalanche activity during storm and shortly after with a few Skier controlled soft slab size 1 to 1.5 on steep unsupported and cross loaded feature that later in second week was no longer reactive. Two wind events created surprisingly very little isolated alpine soft slabs which many are now diffused by a week of cool temps and continued settling. Coverage from Treeline to Alpine was 240cm to 3Meters. Crevasse well bridged and filled in. The Arctic high has caused some faceting 15-20 cm down especially in shallow and wind exposed affected, though it seemed to be a fairly good bond. Conclusion: Very stable snowpack from alpine to below treeline, some isolated soft slabs lurking in heavily lee and crossloaded zones. The major hazard at this point I suspect will be from the fact that the snowpack is so well settled as a single unit that a very large trigger such as a cornice or high explosive could trigger a major event down to ground on steep unsupported features or where the ground cover is ice for example. There are large cornices which held in the cold snap and will become I suspect an important hazard to note when the forecasted temperatures begin to rise early this week. Totally amazing skiing, pow and terrain, YO! Eric Dumerac ACMG Assis. Ski Guide/Assis. Alpine Guide

Very strong winds from the west in the alpine today quickly loaded lee slopes. We cut several small avalanches in steep rolls above 1400 m. It was only -9 at 1400 m, but -13 at the lodge and 1000 m. There are now numerous windslabs lurking in lee features. Skiing quality is still very good in the trees, but wind affected in the alpine. -- Christoph Dietzfelbinger Mountain Guide IFMGA Bear Mountaineering and the Burnie Glacier Chalet Box 4222 Smithers, B.C. Canada V0J 2N0 tel. 250-847-3351 fax 250-847-2854 info@bearmountaineering.ca www.bearmountaineering.ca