Wheeler Hut March 3rd - 5th Summary.

La qualité du hors-piste était:

Incroyable

Les conditions de neige étaient :

• Poudreuse

Nous avons parcouru:

• Pentes alpines
• Forêt dense
• Pentes de faible inclinaison
• Forêt dégagée
• Pentes ensoleillées

Nous sommes restés à l'écart de:

• Pentes convexes
• Pentes raides

Conditions d'avalanche

• Augmentation rapide de la température jusqu'à près ou au-dessus de 0°C ou neige mouillée en surface.

UBC Okanagan Varsity Outdoors Club Wheeler Hut trip March 3-5th.

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Friday March 3rd:

Got to Wheeler hut around 12:30pm, skinned up the Avalanche Crest uptrack gully to just below treeline. ~S3 to start the skin up, stopped snowing around 16:00.

Dug a pit @ 1850m, S aspect, HS~300cm. MF Crust 105 down, unreactive. CTH24 RP, 65cm down. Too late in the day to skin up further. Dropped down into the mellow trees back to hut.

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Saturday March 4th:

Lap 1) Pearly rock triangle moraine. Observed old size 1 slab on SW aspect lookers left of triangle moraine (in picture).

Dug a pit 11:30am @ the ridge of triangle moraine @ 2050m, WNW aspect, 34deg slope, HS~310cm.

CTM17 RP, 45 down, probably storm snow on-top of old wind crust.

CTH25 RP, 55 down, probably previous unbonded windslab.

ECTN9 15 down, ECTN17 45 down (both planar fractures, no propagation).

Skied pearly rock triangle moraine back down to below the big waterfall. No signs instability.

Lap 2) Vaux Moraine. Experienced gradual warming and significant solar radiation throughout the day. Observed plenty of point releases, tree bombs, and multiple large rolling snow boulders on the way up. No slab activity obs. Transitioned and dropped in at 16:45.

Few clouds and calm winds the entire day. Felt like spring out there.

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Sunday March 5th: Goal was to ride glacier crest. At the valley bottom, ~20 minutes into the day I got smoked on top of the head by a hefty tree bomb. Caused a ~3cm long laceration. Sat down for a couple minutes, was pretty shaken up but thankfully not seriously injured. Called it a day after that. Most unexpected end to the weekend. Shoutout Jaiden and Ali for the first aid!!!!

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Shoutout ACC, AvCan and the whole UBC Okanagan VOCO crew.