The Buzz

Date

Thursday, November 29, 2018

We’re a motivated swarm of bees poised for a mission to venture into a new winter landscape.

In the Revelstoke forecast office, we’re also buzzing with excitement about the new winter season. We’re already pushing out daily forecasts, doing our best with a fairly limited information flow.

I asked my friend, co-worker, and seasoned ski guide Shannon Werner for her opinion about how conditions were shaping up in the Southern Interior of BC. The look she gave in response was quizzical. Several seconds passed before she finally replied, “It’s mostly what I don’t know that bothers me. There’s a few reasons why I don’t completely trust the snowpack right now.”

Digging a little deeper, there is evidence for two possible weak layers in the snowpack for regions in the Columbia mountains*. Both layers comprise those bothersome feathery surface hoar crystals. They are buried around 50-80 cm below the surface and in some locations they could be primed and waiting for a human trigger.

Since there are not many backcountry users out there at this time, the truth is we don’t know all that much about how these layers are bonded, and the likelihood of them producing avalanches.

“My gut feeling tells me you’d need to be on just the right kind of slope to trigger something”, continued Shannon. “The most likely slopes I’d have in mind are on north aspects, in sheltered areas, on smooth, steep, or convex slopes right at the boundary where the trees thin out and the alpine opens up in front of you”.

With some uncertainty about how triggerable the snowpack is at this time, it’s worth considering how experienced users approach early season travel (or for that matter, travel anytime there is uncertainty about conditions). My other fellow forecaster, Josh Smith, summed it up perfectly. “Start scared!” Guides start out on small slopes with no consequences and slowly build up to more committing slopes, but only if there are no signs of instability.

Potential signs of instability to watch for are any of the following: recent natural or human-triggered avalanche activity, small rolls releasing under your skis or sled, seeing cutbanks pull out by the side of an access road or trail, whumpfs, (rapid collapses of the snowpack on lower-angled terrain) or cracking of the snow surface. If you do see any of these, the simplest course of action is to stick to lower angled slopes.

I’m stoked to have the inside line on how guides manage conditions when things are uncertain. I try to remind myself that it’s best to play for the long term. The season is long, and there’ll be times to hit things hard and times to dial it way back. After chatting with Shannon and Josh, the best way to describe my current mindset would be, “ease into things slowly”.

One final request: if you do make it into the backcountry this weekend, please let us know what you see. Please submit your observations to the MIN (Mountain Information Network). You can easily share them from there to your favourite social media platform.

Thanks, and have a great weekend!

James, with lots of help from Shannon, Josh and Grant.

* Specific regions this discussion applies to are: North Columbia, South Columbia, Kootenay Boundary, and Cariboos (especially southern parts).

Two people were involved with an avalanche near Meadow Creek on Nov 24—you can check out the details here. Forecasters are concerned for similar slopes this weekend...