Stepped back

Riding quality was:

OK

Snow conditions were:

• Wind affected

We rode:

• Mellow slopes

We stayed away from:

• Alpine slopes
• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Windy

Avalanche conditions

• Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.

We underestimated how much snow would be on the move in Crowsnest today and that made us step back from our original objective. Just because the avalanche danger was rated as moderate, doesn’t mean we can put our heads down and ignore obvious clues of instability. The recent 25 cm of storm snow was getting transported by strong, gusty winds from variable directions building fresh windslabs. We could hardly see each other at times because of the blowing snow! We were getting cracking around our skis and closer to ridge top some harder windslab with hollow drum sounds. We backed off of our alpine objective and essentially skied our skin track back to the sled. Sometimes it its like that, and that is ok.