Big wind, big consequences

Riding quality was:

Good

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Heavy
• Powder
• Wind affected

We rode:

• Dense trees
• Mellow slopes
• Open trees
• Sunny slopes

We stayed away from:

• Alpine slopes
• Convex slopes
• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Sunny
• Warm
• Windy

Avalanche conditions

• Slab avalanches today or yesterday.
• 30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.

Great AST1 field day in Bullmoose today. At the back of the bowl above the Bus there was a large natural avalanche that released in a wind slab below the cornice sometime in the last 24 hrs. (First pic)

Based on that and the heavy wind affected terrain above Treeline we rode mellow trees all day, and found really good pow in the trees in Holzworth. We did see a hard crust below 1500m, but no sign of rain or melt at 1500m or above.

Our pit had moderate result down about 30cm on a layer of old storm snow. The Late November crust was down around 80 cm, and is starting to facet but had no failures. No propagation on ECT tests. We did trigger a small sled cut slide on the way out also on the same 25-30 cm layer it looked like.

Definitely watch out for them wind slabs!