South Caribou conditions

A Public Mountain Conditions Report on how things are shaping up in the South Caribou, thanks to Snowy Mountain Alpine Tours owner Stephen Ludwig:

I went on snowpatrol today on Raft Mountain in the Southern Cariboo Mountains. I found about 80 cm of snow at cutblock elevation and about 100 at treeline on the East ridge of Raft. Conditions were wind hammered above treeline with a strong NW flowing wind. When I checked  a 100cm snowpack in treeline glade terrain at 2000 meters elevation, I found two stellar crystal layers that would react easy or moderate to shovel test and compression test- one down 22cm and one down 40cm. My guess ( hope) is that these two storm snow layers will not cause us trouble later in the year. As I searched for slides, I noticed that those layers had only let loose in steep north chutes naturally. They did not run fast or far. Overall, ski touring is now pretty good in the Cariboos! There are still rocks, logs, and bushes to stay clear of!

Tired tourers reported that trailbreaking was tough in the North Blue River Drainage yesterday. They found 165 cm of snow at an elevation of only 1200 meters! Pretty impressive considering that 1200m meters is lower than Canmore or Rogers Pass!