Core AST Snow Day

Riding quality was:

Good

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Deep powder
• Heavy
• Powder
• Wind affected

We rode:

• Dense trees
• Mellow slopes
• Open trees

We stayed away from:

• Alpine slopes
• Convex slopes
• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Foggy
• Warm
• Windy

Avalanche conditions

• 30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.
• Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.
• Rapid temperature rise to near or above 0°C or wet surface snow.

Great day in Core today! The promised warm weather arrived above 1100m on the drive in, going from -20° to 0°C in minutes as we climbed up the road. High winds from the South West, lots of blowing snow, poor visibility in the open. All exposed windward slopes at Treeline and Alpine were scoured pretty hard, and we saw significant wind loading and wind slab formation on Lee slopes at TL. Our pit was on the Lee slope at 1600m at Treeline, and we had fairly dense wind slabs reacting and propagating easily down both 10 and 18cm on column and extended column tests. Lots of shooting cracks around ski tips anywhere wind could affect the snow.

We stuck to the creeks and meadows and found terrific heavy powder anywhere that was sheltered from the wind in tree openings.