First day at Ashman Ridge!

Riding quality was:

Good

Snow conditions were:

• Powder

We rode:

• Open trees

We stayed away from:

• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Stormy
• Sunny

Today was the field team's first day at Ashman Ridge. The road was plowed to around 20kms. Once we transitioned from sleds to skis the skinning was tricky with many alders, down trees and stumps. As you climb higher in elevation, the snowpack gets deeper and coverage improves.

We dug a profile on a north aspect at 1400m. The total snow depth was 170cm and the early-December crust was down 60 cm from the surface. We found a softer, weak layer that was about 5cm thick above the crust. In compression tests, we had repeated easy results in this weak layer above the crust. With good visibility we did not observe any recent avalanches.

We skied a lap on the north side and got in some nice turns in mellow terrain. As this area's snowpack is a bit different than the other Smithers' zones, we opted for conservative terrain choices while we gain confidence in the snowpack in this area.