Persistent layer on Joffre Shoulder

Riding quality was:

OK

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Heavy
• Powder

We rode:

• Dense trees
• Mellow slopes
• Open trees

We stayed away from:

• Alpine slopes
• Convex slopes
• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Wet

Day trip to Joffre Shoulder. Temperature at the parking lot at 8.30am was 1 degree. Snow was heavy, but did not glop to our waxed skins. It was snowing continuously throughout the day. 5cm of fresh snow at the highway.

10- 25 cm of new snow fall at around 1700/ 1800m elevation on a 1cm breakable crust sitting on unconsolidated snow. The new snow was not bonding to the layer below and we slid on it a few times. We did not notice slab formation, but noticed small cracks around the ski, likely from the crust below the powder.

In the transition to the alpine at 1900m wind was blowing in gusts of variing directions such that the falling snow changed directions. Otherwise the day was calm.

We dug a pit at 1935m on a north facing 20 degree slope (see pin) and found the persistent weak layer. While isolating the column it sheared off clean and was sitting approximately 1.2m below the surface.

Snow profile: 10- 15 cm of light powder, that did not bond well at all, 1cm breakable crust, below a lot of very very dense snow (hard to dig through and comes of in big chunks) and below that is the weak layer with unconsolidated snow at approximately 1.2 m below the surface.

While we assessed the likelihood of triggering this weak layer in the low angle terrain as low we turned back and we're glad about our decision to stay in treed and low angle terrain.

Skiing was nice up high, but became more challenging on the way down as we were hitting the crust. The boulder fields have an extremely thin coverage, resulting in lots of holes. We got the best skiing in at the cut block close to the highway. On the logging road the snow started glopping to our skis. It was 2 degrees at the parking lot at 2.40pm.