Western Canada January 6th - 10th

[jmckay]

 

Rogers pass / Pearly Rock

 

Skied up to Pearly Rock with Lee Johnston today.

 

The dump that we hoped for turned out to be a measly trickle of a few

centimeters. However, there were moderate to strong winds throughout the

day which helped build lots of thin soft slabs reactive to the skis. Ski

cut a soft slab sz 1.5, running on recent storm snow. Moderate

trailbreaking with fair to good skiing down -- the surface has firmed up a

lot with the wind above treeline. Little whoomfing, but lots of cracking

and little sloughs. The route up to Pearly Rock is tricky to do safely

even with good visibility, and careful routefinding will still bring you

onto one steep slope (the triangular moraine).

 

Alpine -- Considerable (steep windloaded features are a bad idea right

now) TL - Considerable BTL - Moderate

 

Regards,

Tom Wolfe

Ass't Alpine 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.

 

 

 

Proof of Global Warming

[jmckay]

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 up to the Lilly Glacier today with Jordy Shepherd, with the intent of doing the loop around to the Asulkan. High humidity, moderate winds and snow transport from today and previous days’ storm snow has established soft slabs of varying thickness (5 cm to 90 cm). We turned around at the base of the glacier due to low visibility, whumphing, shooting cracks, and we could hear avalanches running up in the alpine – stability was deteriorating quickly. We managed to cut a sz 1.0 during the descent above the large approach moraine; not surprising given the conditions. It slid on the 30-40 cm down storm interface then stepped down to the Dec 25 crust, but noteworthy was that it was able to propagate through a thin section of slab (maybe 2-3 cm thick), then over to another small convex roll and release it as well. Keep that in mind as you get near, some of those steeper moraine features at treeline and above.

 

Stability:

Alpine: Poor

Treeline Fair

Below Treeline: Moderate

 

Cheers,

 

Kirk Mauthner

Full Asst. Guide

 

 

 

Street Gang In Banff

[jmckay]

Today (Jan 7) I spent the day with several RAC instructors doing a training session. We went up towards Bow Hut just into the moraines towards the Little Crowfoot Glacier.

 

At the parking lot it was scattered cloud, -8, 17 cm of storm snow from the previous couple of days, light NW winds at ridgetop with signs of previous significant wind transport at upper elevations. There was a suspicious lack of avalanche activity.

 

There were several whumpfs noted heading up the trail, with one causing cracking on adjacent slopes as we entered the canyon. Further up the canyon one of the group stepped off the packed trail and propagated a size 1 slab above, 20-30 cm deep, 7 m wide and running 15 m downslope (photo). It was a storm snow slab with the failure layer being facets lying on the ground.

 

We noted another larger size 1 in the moraines above our high point, possibly remotely triggered by another party in the vicinity. It occurred while we were digging a test profile (at treeline on a north aspect).

 

In the profile there were no surprises: 40 cm of a variety of grains, 4 finger strength, lie atop 75 cm of facets and depth hoar, fist to 1 finger strength. Easy to moderate resistant planar shears at the storm snow interface, hard sudden planar shears on the facets.

 

On return to the parking lot, on the west face of Observation Peak, we saw a skier triggered size 1 which seemed to have remotely triggered a large size 2.

 

Alpine: Considerable, Treeline: Considerable, Below Treeline: Considerable where there is enough snow to overcome the ground roughness, Low elsewhere. We seem to be just reaching threshold depths below treeline now.

 

Confidence is low and consequences high; there are lots of rocks to hit as you get dragged down by the swirling white vortex. Keep your head up and your feet on the ground

 

Mark Klassen

Mountain Guide

mark@alpinism.com

www.alpinism.com.

[jmckay]

 

Park Warden Lisa Paulson Looking to have her day made

 

 

Looking Back towards Victoria and Huber

Edited January 8, 2006 by jmckay

[jmckay]

At 1500 m on the E side of Hudson Bay Mountain it was -4.5 at noon. There was

no precipitation and the wind was light from the south.

 

20 cm of snow have fallen since New Year's day. There was very little wind

effect: the HS was 90 cm on the windward and 120 cm on the lee side. The

persistent weak layers - facets and surface hoar - are now 50 to 55 cm down.

They react consistently to shear tests.

 

We observed no natural avalanches at all, but did not feel confident enough to

enter steep open terrain. We felt several whumpfs that travelled tens of metres.

 

--

Christoph Dietzfelbinger, Mountain Guide

Bear Mountaineering and the Burnie Glacier Chalet

Box 4222 Smithers B.C. Canada V0J 2N0

info@bearmountaineering.ca www.bearmountaineering.ca

tel. 250-847-3351 fax 250-847-2854

[jmckay]

Just back from a week up at the Campbell Icefields Chalet north-east of Golden,

B.C. Dec 31-Jan 7. A great place to spend new years.

 

Quite a stormy week with 40-60cm of new snow throughout the week (35cm of which

fell on the evening of Jan 5). Only 2 days of weather good enough to go explore

in the high country (Jan 2 & 7), the rest of the days were spent close to

treeline so we could see something. Fog, fog and more fog was the theme of the

week... and snow!

 

We had 2 skier controlled avalanches (size 1.0) on convex south facing alpine

terrain during the snow and wind storm on the 5th, snow that had any wind effect

at all was reacting very easily with 15-20 degree slopes cracking and moving

slightly underfoot (some fractures travelling up to 15m). This reactivity

settled out quickly and the snowpack on the 6th was considerably more stable.

No natural activity was observed at all during the week. Wind effect was

restricted to alpine terrain only.

 

Deeper down in the snowpack (around 50cm from the surface) we found the mid

December facet layer, which in this particular area was rounding out well and

sheers were in the moderate range with a resistent fracture character (CTM 15

RP). The november facet/crust layer was present around 150cm from the surface

with hard, sudden fractures present (CTH 23 RP on SC size 2.0). There was, on

average, around 2m of snow on the ground at treeline, up to 220cm probed on the

Campbell Icefields proper.

 

We skied some rather committing terrain during the week but it was entirely on

slopes that had previously avalanched during the Dec 24 event. We turned away

from one large north facing slope at 2500m (around 37degrees) during the week

due to the shears in the snowpack, lack of past natural activity on the slope

and a rather committing kick turn on the slope over a rather large drop. In

general we were cautious with our terrain decisions throughout the week if the

slope had no evidence of previous natural activity.

 

When we left on the 7th I was calling the avalanche danger C/M/L with caution in

lee terrain.

 

Ian Tomm

Assistant Ski Guide

Canadian Avalanche Association

 

 

 

_______________________________________________

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.

[jmckay]

Aaron Beardmore and I spent a recreational day climbing at Bear Spirit today. There are 3 flows of ice, with the ice quality varying from a fair bit of wet, aerated chandeliers to some good plastic ice. The mixed lines have the best ice and are in good nick.

 

Light snow all day, with 5 cm of low density easy shovelling in my driveway before dinner tonight. 10 cm at Lake Louise ski hill today apparently, with good skiing reported. Just stay in-bounds, it's been touchy out there with several skier triggered avalanches in the Lake Louise backcountry the past few days.

 

Mark Klassen

Mountain Guide

mark@alpinism.com

www.alpinism.com

 

_______________________________________________

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.

[jmckay]

Update on Monashee mountains,

 

The snow continues out here in the Monashee mountains with 70-80 cms. of storm snow over the last 3 days. It has been highly reactive to skier triggering and there was a natural avalanche cycle Tuesday from the alpine into below treeline terrain with a significant wind event yesterday afternoon with the passing of the cold front yesterday afternoon. Today they are calling for another 20 cm. of snow - The December 26th crust is 85-100cm. deep at this point and has seen a lot of recent loading so it may soon start to become reactive.

 

In short the skiing is amazing but the hazard is quite high and the storm snow instabilities are deep enough now to produce significant avalanches - so be prudent in your run choice and be aware of overhead threat of larger terrain features that may produce large natural avalanche.

 

Ski Safe,

 

Scott Davis

 

Mountain Guide

 

Join Mary and Daisy as they try to climb Mt Everst. Go Daisy!! Go Mary!!

 

Support Mary and Daisy at thier expedition site

Edited January 11, 2006 by jmckay

[jmckay]

Can you say “HIGH AVALANCHE HAZARD”. Good now say it again and again and again.

 

We have had the first real westerly flowing storm in the Rockies and it has dumped 20 to 40 cm of new snow in the general divide area. Everything would be highly suspect right now. So ice climbers I will be seeing you at Louise or the Weeping Wall over the next couple days. Skiers I suggest shelling out for a ticket till this settles out which will be a few days. Please read all forcasts for your destination. I personally would be worried about big natural events running to valley bottom in the Rogers Pass area.