Orca Bowl

Riding quality was:

Good

Snow conditions were:

• Powder

We rode:

• Open trees

The day was:

• Cloudy

Spent two days skiing in Orca Bowl.

Surfy pow in steep open trees with fast sluffing in top 10-15 cm. Challenging alder navigation for the first 100 m above the road, otherwise easy travel.

The mid-storm crust (Dec 21) is present up to around 1500 m. In our pit around 1400m (N facing, HS ~100) we observed repeatable CTV results (fractured during isolation) on facets below the crust (down 25 cm).

At 1700 m (N facing, HS 185 cm), we observed moderate resistant planar results on surface hoar (down 60 cm) no results on the Dec 9 crust (down 80). The midpack was well consolidated with a progressive change from 4F to 1F.

There was notable wind Sunday night (roughly W), leaving organic debris on the surface of the snow. Trees at ridgetop shed their snow. Ski penetration decreased from 15-20 cm Sunday to 10 cm Monday, but no evidence of new windslabs.