Sandon & London Ridge, Goat Range, South Selkirks
Here is some field info after teaching AST 1 and 2 courses from Jan. 6-10 in the New Denver area:
Jan. 7 (light rain and overcast at 7:30am in New Denver). Up white Creek in Sandon as the storm was winding down we were getting isolated whumpfing with large loads (several skiers) and able to trigger small unsupported features down 25-30 cm on the Jan. 4 surface hoar, which was quite large in one clearcut near valley bottom.
Jan. 8 (-1C and overcast at 7:30am in New Denver). At 6100ft. on a NE aspect (Sandon, Cable Bowl) we had easy compression test results with a progressive compression fracture character on the Jan 4 storm snow interface and could not locate the surface in an open glade. A facet layer down 50-60cm gave hard results with a resistant planar character. Good ski quality up high, but alders were still poking out below about 5500ft. The new storm snow did allow us to ski the tighter forest right down to valley bottom without too much trouble.
Jan. 9 (-6C and overcast at 7am in New Denver). 25-30cm deep trail breaking to the London Ridge area. Visibility opened up in the alpine and we saw numerous crown lines from a cycle that occurred during the last storm (25-35cm deep with up to 10cm new load on bed surfaces). Most slabs did not run full path but one size 2-2.5 on a steep, east aspect at ridgetop (7400ft) caught our eye. Light to moderate wind transport had occurred at ridgetop from a southwesterly flow. Many layers were visible in the snowpack on a south aspect at 5700ft but the storm snow down 30cm (giving easy, resistant shears but no result on an Extended Column Test) and a faceted crust down 65-80cm (giving hard, variable results) seemed the most active.
Jan. 10 (-11C and clear at 8am in New Denver). Back at London Ridge (great skiing) we found 2 more size 2s on south and east aspects that failed on the Jan. 4 layer during the last storm. At 6000 ft. on a SE aspect we had moderate, variable fracture character results on the storm interface down 35cm and hard results on a thick crust layer down ~100cm (in a 170cm snow pack) which gave some sudden planar and some broken fracture characters (Extended Column Test No result). HS 200cm at our high point of 6700cm on a somewhat lee slope.
Excellent ski quality, but we were avoiding larger, steep, open slopes, convexities and unsupported features and employing safe travel practices to minimize our exposure.
Cheers,
Shaun King ACMG / UIAGM Mountain Guide
Mountain Sense Guiding & Instruction