Boulder Creek - Sled.

Submitted by
Yukon Field Team
Observations date
Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 19:00
Location
59.691500° N 133.423370° W
Reporting on
  • Snow conditions
Map for Mountain Information Network report: Boulder Creek - Sled.

Snow conditions

Riding quality was:
Good
Snow conditions were:
  • Crusty
  • Powder
  • Wind affected
We rode:
  • Mellow slopes
  • Open trees
We stayed away from:
  • Alpine slopes
  • Convex slopes
  • Steep slopes

Information

Avalanche conditions
  • Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.

Comments

We headed into boulder creek today. It was an overcast day, calm and warm with temps near 0c. On south aspects, sledding in the trees we found 20cm of storm snow sitting on old sugary facets that developed during the cold snap. If you stay on the throttle you can stay on top and the sledding is good. Slow down and you break through into sugary facets and trench the machine. Above 1400m there’s wind effect but the travel is much more supportive. Limited visibility kept us to low angle slopes and out of start zones.

Our layer of concern was 24cm of new snow on top of now buried old sugary surface facets from the cold snap of a few weeks ago. We chose low angle terrain where we could manage overhead hazard.

Low angle terrain below 1400m was deep. A combination of recent storm snow and sugary facets.
Low angle terrain below 1400m was deep. A combination of recent storm snow and sugary facets.
Periods of decent visibility at tree line around midday. The alpine was near zero visibility.
Periods of decent visibility at tree line around midday. The alpine was near zero visibility.
This layer produced some good whumpfs (signs of instability) on low angle terrain when we transitioned to skis in the afternoon.
This layer produced some good whumpfs (signs of instability) on low angle terrain when we transitioned to skis in the afternoon.