Moody North Bowl

Riding quality was:

OK

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Powder

We rode:

• Alpine slopes
• Mellow slopes
• Steep slopes
• Sunny slopes

We stayed away from:

• Convex slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Cold
• Stormy
• Sunny

Avalanche conditions

• Slab avalanches today or yesterday.

Moody day with a mix of snow, hail, fast moving clouds, and sun. 0ºC in the alpine.

The snow conditions were just as variable, with horrible snow from the Knolls down to the lodge (the storm snow has cemented into a thick, punchy layer that makes skiing unpredictable and pretty bad), and good powder in the alpine (above 1250m).

I opened a track through breakable crust then powder to the Dome and skied North Bowl in good dry powder, although not bottomless at all.

Below 1300m, there was generally 40cm of dense powder on top of the melt-freeze crust, topped with 5cm of wind/sun crust. Above 1300m on N/NW aspects the top 5cm turn into a softer crust and made for good turn. Higher up, I found 45cm of good, slightly dense powder with a top 5cm reactive (it avalanched on every turns in steep terrain).

There’s evidence of a small storm avalanche cycle, with numerous avalanches on different aspects. A size 0.5, thicker than the 5cm mentioned above was fresh from today in North Bowl.