- Submitted by
- Zack Wentz
- Observations date
- Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 22:30
- Location
- 50.144660° N 123.078300° W
- Reporting on
- Snow conditions
%2F-123.0783%2C50.14466%2C8%2C0%2C0%2F1026x200%3Faccess_token%3Dpk.eyJ1IjoiYXZhbGFuY2hlY2FuYWRhIiwiYSI6ImNqd2dvZmUxdzE4ZWg0M2tkaXpuNG95aTQifQ.pBLM87fE3sIxRJqJT7Bf7g&w=1200&q=75 "Lower Gin Peak")
Quick
Avalanche
Snowpack
Weather
Incident
Snow conditions
- Riding quality was:
- Amazing
- Snow conditions were:
- Powder
- Wet
- Wind affected
- We rode:
- Cut blocks
- Dense trees
- Mellow slopes
- Open trees
- We stayed away from:
- Alpine slopes
- Convex slopes
- Steep slopes
- Sunny slopes
Information
- The day was:
- Cloudy
- Sunny
- Warm
- Avalanche conditions
- Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.
- Rapid temperature rise to near or above 0°C or wet surface snow.
Comments
Out leading a splitboarding trip with the UBC VOC. Around mid-morning, we moved from the 'below treeline' to 'treeline' elevation band, and the snow became much drier and wind-affected. We decided to hike up the slopes south of the lake, and noticed some wind-effects as we ascended. Atop our line, I dug a test pit to ID potential weaknesses, and we found sudden shears after easy loading on a layer buried 15cms deep and was propagating fully across the column. Further weaknesses were observed, but were all resistant and buried deeper, and were not propagating across the column. With this info, we decided to ski atop ridge crests and ride mellow, straight slopes to mitigate the hazard. There was really dry, awesome pow shots above treeline riding down to the lake. Winter's not over everyone!