Zoa Treeline

Riding quality was:

Good

Snow conditions were:

• Powder
• Wind affected

We rode:

• Dense trees
• Mellow slopes
• Open trees

We stayed away from:

• Convex slopes
• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Stormy
• Windy

Avalanche conditions

• Slab avalanches today or yesterday.

Late post - for skiing Monday Feb 20th at Zoa at treeline and below.

Strong gusting winds, increasing in intensity throughout the day caused significant wind transport and formation of wind slabs on all NW-NE aspects that we observed (excluding very dense trees). Only a few cm of accumulation all day.

We expected touchy slabs and did not plan to ski any slopes >30deg. A ski cut on a short 30deg NE aspect around 1700m at a slight convexity confirmed this and produced the avalanche shown. It propagated further than anticipated and was a good reminder to keep test slopes much smaller and to avoid testing the limits of what is safe to ski too much. Afterwards, we stuck to only well supported slopes <25deg and avoided all overhead hazard.