Cold day for Hoars

Riding quality was:

OK

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Hard
• Heavy
• Powder
• Wind affected

We rode:

• Dense trees
• Mellow slopes
• Open trees

We stayed away from:

• Alpine slopes
• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Cold
• Stormy

Avalanche conditions

• Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.

Cold and windy in Bullmoose for an AST1 today, and everything is still blasted from last weeks wind. We were able to find a bit of sheltered powder at and below treeline, and we avoided the alpine. South aspects were scoured to dirt and North aspects were wind loaded, and looked pretty slabby. There was signs of an old size 2 Cornice-triggered avalanche from the Tuesday wind storm if not before.

Below treeline we found new Surface Hoar growing everywhere up to 10 mm in size, and it was also present in sheltered areas at treeline, about 2-4 mm. The Jan 13 surface Hoar was down about 10 cm at treeline and reactive in the easy range but there was no slab and it wouldn’t propagate. A small test pit at treeline that was North aspect and wind exposed had a very hard wind slab, about 20 cm deep that was wasn’t bonded well to the snowpack and failed in extended column tests in the moderate range. Height of snow was variable, but 1.5 metres was average anywhere that was out of the wind.