Allan Creek...sneaky wind event and active pwl

Riding quality was:

Good

Snow conditions were:

• Powder
• Wind affected

We rode:

• Alpine slopes
• Convex slopes
• Mellow slopes
• Sunny slopes

We stayed away from:

• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Cold
• Sunny

Avalanche conditions

• Slab avalanches today or yesterday.
• Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.

Day started out with -33 temps at valley bottom, but the bluebird skies said go! No winds noticed last night but after traveling a few km up the trail, it looked like the trees barfed on the trail (first sign) moss, twigs and branches litter the trail which is very abnormal. Upon traveling through upper tree line we notice some amazing snow surface manipulation from the wind, more than i have ever seen(second sign) Next we observed numerous...read over 15...natural windslab events starting from high alpine start zones, with wide propagation up to sz 2. None of these triggered deeper slabs below and most crowns seemed to be 10-20cms (3rd sign) The majority of the open areas were very affected by the overnight winds which really affected riding enjoyment and caused issues traveling in open terrain.

We searched for unaffected terrain and ended up in a sheltered NE facing bowl at 2550m that had not seen a track all season and the snow quality was epic....well....at first entrance to this bowl we simultaneously remote triggered sz 2 and 2.5 both above and below the rider in the open bowl feature. Released on convex features over 35deg, 60cms down with propagation to 150m wide on Surface hoar/facets to 4-6mm. The 190118 pwl was certainly alive and well in this untouched terrain.

We rode some some big terrain before approaching this feature without issue. We believe the sheltered nature of this feature preserved the pwl to its fullest and would caution anyone venturing into this type of terrain....

After all that....pls don't foeget about the new windslabs developed last night......ride safe.