5-Mile Conditions -- NOT SAFE
Skied into Five Mile Basin today thinking we’d have a nice late-season backcountry ski. Incorrect. We walked up Yankee Girl and continued straight up to the ridge, thinking we’d take the line down into Five Mile and do a lap two.
We skied down the not-too steep pitch (30-35° in some spots) and noticed that there was some significant sluffing which followed us both down this slope, which was North-facing. The skiing was remarkably good but the sluff (about the top 7 or so cms) made us a little uneasy. After we stopped to reassess, the sluff continued below us for as far as we could see. We figured we’d take it easy and check out the “Fingers” in Five Mile. These slopes are west-facing, treed and low angle so we thought we’d be OK. We saw some evidence of sluff avalanches without much debris but they weren’t going too far down the slope and they were all in open areas.
We began making our way up through the trees and the trouble started when we crossed an open patch about 20 metres across. Spacing ourselves out, the first skier got across without incident (albeit, cracks were noticed). Number two skier went across and, at about the 10 metre mark, set off a soft slab avalanche below him that had a crown depth of about 30 cms. The slide ran at least 50 metres. Not very fast and not a lot of snow but enough to put more fear into us. We continued on (with the idea of getting out of there soon) and saw more shooting cracks. We then triggered another slide on a switch back with unsupported snow but not steeper than 25 degrees and in even thicker trees. This event, coupled with all else we’d seen, was enough for us to pull the plug and go no higher. From here, we skied down in the trees one at a time safely.
We skied down to a bench and noticed that more sluffing (this time running longer) had happened within the last 45 minutes. From there we followed islands of safety and began to ski back up the west-facing slope we had originally skied down. This slope (particularly where we were at the bottom) had gotten less stable in the short time we had been away. More shooting cracks and mini-slides into tree wells made for a pretty tense uptrack. Neither of us had experienced conditions this sketchy in treed terrain—most all of it at less than 30°. When we got back to the Whitewater parking lot, another skier said he had been partially buried and there were even two sluffs on the Silverking Chair lift-line!
We had read the CAA avalanche report before heading out and saw their low/moderate rating. This may have been due to limited intel shared at this time of year. It felt more like high/considerable. It’s up to you to read the signs and make your own calls—and be conservative. It was sketchy in places that are usually safe. A learning experience for us on April 16.
(click on the images to make them bigger)
Standing on the bed looking down at the debris near the trees.
The crown. This is a close up. There were two layers that went. You can see the top 5 cms and 20 cms under that.
Here's a little perspective on the crown wall.
New slide covering our uptrack
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