elk valley 10/11

ice climbing conditions looking prime up morrissey creek on wednesday. returning with ice tools etc tomorrow.

road is plowed all the way past wranglers cabin; approx 18ft snowbanks...

one member of our group tiggered a sz 1.5 whilst ski touring the lizzard range on sunday

approx 40cm crown, at about 1900m, wind affected rib feature above the treeline.

i ski cut the slope first, two others skied it, then it realeased once the fourth skier skied down. no burrial, no problems to us, just giving y'all a heads up.

wew had dug a pit lower down on our tour up and observed about 80cm snowpack, with about 20cm of low density fresh snow sitting on top on about 5cm soft slab. with the rest of the base seeming well consolitdated. it was - 6celcius too

spooky. glad everyone is ok.

good pow out there today (Monday) below 1800m in the trees, still lacking coverage in a few places e.g. big bang; but the more sheltered the better e.g. mitchy chutes & siberia ridge.

Tuesday 30th.

super deep, low density blower. sluffing hard and fast in the trees

morrissey ice climbs in great shape

http://raveneyephotography.com/Photography/?page_id=1465

looks like there's some hoar growing out there now (sunday dec 5th) with the cold and clear weather.

wednesday 8th.

it's warm, it's precipitating and it's landing on suncrust and surface hoar...

Made it to Harvey on Saturday Dec 11 and it was good. 120cms @ 1900 m. Had to be aware of wind exposed features but over all the snow was good! I'm gonna try to add photos but we'll see.

K never mind the photos. Out of my skill set.

Cheers

post them in the gallery at least!

freezing level and snow back at valley bottom!

Snow pillow data now shows Average!  yay!

http://bcrfc.env.gov.bc.ca/data/asp/realtime/asp_pages/asp_2c09q.html

friday 17th

skied timber headwall colouir/chute (THC)... good times; dense wind affected snow up top with some creamy turns on the run out. not much light left after the lifts close these days, we could see the street lights had switched on in town whilst we were on the ridgetop

skeed the south facing prominent looking chutes on mt. hosmer today.

started skinning at beese road with a car stashed at the hartly lake snowmobile parking lot. crusty in the trees below 1500m allthough coverage is descent, above that there seems to be a well consolidated mid pack providing suppourtive and grippy skining with about boot top pow on top. gained the ridge from the east side; climbed, traversed and downclimbed facet and rime covered rock/shale. luckily the facets brush off nicely to look for semi solid rock holds underneath. topped out on the ridge at 2400+m. skied the chute closest to large cliff face cutting skiers right at the bottom to avoid clifs/frozen waterfall. continued skiing rad pow down nice glades to the logging road and car.

several hasty handshears through the day, one took two hands to pull the block out. hard results, up to 30cm slab in windloaded areas.

made it out to thunder meadows last night. last chair on whitepass got me to the cabin by 7pm via polaris bowl / easy street. snowed lightly all night then i got up early to ski back to the hill in time for work at 8am.

some dense alder and crust around the bottom of easy street/below liverwurst pass, but travel and ski conditions are generally good

Found more bomber snow up three sisters on Christmas eve. Sled tow up olivea creek. Skiined up past north and cornice bowl. Booted up a northish aspect, had to shovel through a cornice to top out on the ridge. 60km/h winds on the ridge, not much snow up there except rime. Skied front side of the middle sister down to fairy creek 1800m run. Lot's of debris down fairy creek gulley makes travel slow but apart from that conditions were good. The top pitch of the middle sister AKA the ramp is vey thin snowpack, between 10cm of snow, 1cm of rime or just bare shale, good pow lower down in some more sheltered areas. Large surface hoar around 1600m

between waist and face deep in big steep mother bowl on tuesday. blower on top, surface hoar about 10-15 cm down

2 metre party

super sick!

Feb 2nd

prime powder harvesting conditions were found on the south facing glades upper mt proctor as well as the east facing slide paths on mt fernie lately. you may have noticed the tracks from town. the cold temps are helping to preserve powder in areas that are normally too sun crusty to be worth skiing, however the forecast is for an inversion today.  

large surface hoar growth especially above 1800m noted the last 2 days. 

higher elevations (2400m +) look wind hammered

cedar valley side of Mt. Fernie/Moccassin were similar conditions.  Beautiful bluebird pow!  Bomber conditions.  This will change with the warming trend and additional snow loading.  Let's hope its a big dump!

i guess winds are supposed to pick up too. might blow away the new hoar, it's been calm the last few blue days