Tutshi Chutes and scores!

Riding quality was:

Amazing

Snow conditions were:

• Powder

We rode:

• Dense trees
• Open trees
• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Warm

6cms fell overnight at Fraser camp, moderate south winds and limited visibility had us looking for terrain that limited our exposure to the current avalanche problem (wind slab) and gave good visibility and shelter from the south winds . The trees at Tutshi chutes delivered in spades!

The ski lines in the trees gave good turns in snow unaffected by the winds. Probing around we found an average of 120cm of snow at treeline. As we gained elevation travel was a mostly supportive. @1100m the wind had its way and the snow was heavily wind effected. We skied a few laps in the trees keeping below 1100m.

We paid attention to ski pen and watched for the presence of wind slab (hard hollow sounding snow). We backed away from an alpine lee feature that was heavily loaded from the new snow and south winds. There was a dramatic change between the wind hammered alpine terrain and the wind loaded lee terrain - if the slope looked fat from fresh wind deposited snow, we stayed away from it.

The day was warm -2c and the forecast winds didn’t show up. The sun did pack a punch as skies cleared in the afternoon.