Bijoux Mt West

Riding quality was:

Good

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Hard
• Powder
• Wind affected

We rode:

• Alpine slopes
• Convex slopes
• Dense trees
• Mellow slopes
• Open trees
• Steep slopes

We stayed away from:

• Cut blocks
• Sunny slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Cold
• Stormy
• Sunny
• Windy

Good day to travel today, we made the full loop from Mt West to Bijoux and return.

Same things as has already been mentioned, very wind scoured and hard especially above treeline. Snowpack is hard and consolidated, the only issues we saw were small isolated wind slabs (we triggered a small 5 m slab about 10 cm thick in a concave sidehill situation) and large surface hoar (5-15 mm) all over the place, even on wind exposed slopes.

We dug a pit at 1600 m at treeline. Major layers of concern were a small crust 7 cm down, a facet layer down 20 cm and another down 65 cm. None of them reacted well to tests (CTM14 BRK dn 20 CTH30 RP dn 65)

Right now there’s not much to worry about, but there’s a big storm coming and for the next couple days staying off big slopes and out of the alpine until the new snow has a chance to consolidate.

Once these large hoars are buried though, it’s likely gonna be a while until they aren’t reactive.