Emily's First Mc

Riding quality was:

OK

Snow conditions were:

• Hard
• Powder
• Wind affected

We rode:

• Cut blocks
• Dense trees
• Mellow slopes
• Open trees
• Steep slopes
• Sunny slopes

We stayed away from:

• Alpine slopes
• Convex slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy

Avalanche conditions

• Slab avalanches today or yesterday.
• Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.

As we were riding we noticed shooting cracks underneath our machines on some exposed slopes at treeline. This gave us the heads up that wind slabs were going to be reactive to human triggering in these areas. We found a small northwest-facing slope and were able to trigger a small wind slab on a convex rollover. We avoided any larger, wind-loaded slopes at treeline and above as we didn’t want to trigger a larger wind slab avalanche.

There is some powder to be found in sheltered areas at treeline and below. In the alpine the slopes are either wind-scoured back to a hard crust, or wind-loaded with a firm wind slab on the surface.

The day was calm, with cloudy conditions and some very light snow starting in the afternoon.