AST 1 Snowmobile Dec 27

Things slowly filling in in the Fraser/Bryant lake area. We had a snowmobile AST 1 in the areas north and south of the creek, along Fraser ridge, and below big Kahuna. With about 20cm of unconsolidated powder above a now supportive middle snowpack the riding quality was actually very good when the light was on (about 50% of the time). Total snow depth is now just over 1 meter at lake elevation. A snow profile on a north aspect revealed two layers of concern: the first was down 80cm and gave moderate, sudden planar results on decomposing surface hoar the other was down 100 near the base of the snowpack that again failed suddenly in the moderate range. We also experience a whumpf at a high elevation regroup near a shallow, rocky ridge that I suspect was again in that bottom sugar snow layer. These obs were enough to keep us on low angle terrain and away from higher start zones. Overall, not bad riding for Dec and a great group of ASTers.