Bushy with a side of rain crust

Map for Mountain Information Network report: Bushy with a side of rain crust

Snow conditions

Riding quality was:
Terrible
Snow conditions were:
  • Crusty

Information

The day was:
  • Sunny

Comments

Went up the Middle and South Dore River areas today hoping to find something good to ski. Still far too many alders to make access easy and the rain crust from recent rain events appears to go quite high, estimate 1600m or more (we only made it to 1400m). There was evidence of a pretty big avalanche cycle in the South Dore with debris even running right to valley bottom through some thick alders. Not sure if the culprits were wind/storm slabs or if the weak layer was a deeper rain crust from early November. The biggest slides were all on east facing slopes although there were a few on west faces as well. It seems like hazard has dropped significantly since this cycle but unfortunately so has ski/riding quality with the new crust. A new layer of surface hoar is now growing on top of this crust and will be something to watch when it gets buried in the coming days as it may become our new problem weak layer.