Cowboy Ridge

Map for Mountain Information Network report: Cowboy Ridge

Snow conditions

Riding quality was:
Amazing
Snow conditions were:
  • Powder
We rode:
  • Mellow slopes
  • Open trees
We stayed away from:
  • Alpine slopes
  • Convex slopes

Information

The day was:
  • Cold
  • Sunny

Comments

We skied beautiful fresh powder off Cowboy Ridge. There was fresh snow fall in the morning, which progressively cleared throughout the day. A snow profile about halfway up the ridge (~1750m) showed a consolidated snowpack that took quite a bit of effort to fail in a compression test. We observed a weak layer about 30cm down and the early December rain crust causing all the PS problem in the S2S region 1-1.5m down. This definitely concerned us as it was obvious triggering something on this layer had the potential to be catastrophic and so stayed cautious with our decision making and terrain choices. The face was not wind affected and we saw no other signs of avalanche activity at the time of the snow profile. When skiing out, we saw that there was a slide far skiers right on the ridge (shown in picture) it was hard to tell from the distance, but we don’t think it stepped all the way down to the PS layer. This slide probably happened between 2-3PM.