2013/14 Coast Mountain Conditions

[Alex]

Went for a tour / rock dodging yesterday

The wind made a mess of all that snow that fell. It covered the ground nice and smooth and made it impossible to spot rocks that were barely under the surface. Best skiing was on the glacier in sheltered spots, although that snow was still wind pressed. There were some funky slabs on south facing slopes (northerly wind), but it was below threshold for sliding (on most slopes).

Alpine - good coverage, although variable due to the wind
Treeline - the wind seemed worse here... where'd all the snow go?
Below Treeline - the snow went here

[Alex]

The dog had the most fun

[clarkee]

Went to Baker at the weekend, access was fine, snow was acceptable but not very deep but very stable / turned to concrete in the afternoon.

[Alex]

We managed to find some decent snow on Sunday in the Garibaldi Special Economic Area. Best aspects were W through N. The snow had been loaded onto the wind stripped surfaces from the previous weeks outflow winds. There was a definite potential sliding layer between 30 and 50 cm down. We couldn't get it to react, but we only tested low angle (30 degree max) slopes that were well supported.



The clouds came in and out all day, but the light was mostly good

[Alex]

On Saturday Mount Seymour had about a 20cm base of dense snow with a bit of fluff on top of it.
We made some turns on the resort, but mostly just skinned / side stepped our way from first Pump.

On Sunday the Coquihalla appeared to have the most new snow, so we went to Needle Peak. The snow on the N facing trees parallel to the trail was awesome. Knee deep and other than dodging the abundance of small trees, it was very ski-able. A few other groups up there as well. The wind at ridge top was BLOWING. So we stayed low and sheltered. On the way back down we over-stoked on pow and dropped too far left onto the W facing trees where the snow pack was thinner and the rock slabs were sketchier. The wind was hammering through the trees and made it quite miserable. All in all a good November day! Lots of fun turns.

[BillyFromTheHills]

Every time I see the screen name "whitehonky", I wonder why it is ok to use a racial slur. What would happen if I used "blacknigger", or "yellowchink"?

[Sugarloafer]

Every time I see the screen name "whitehonky", I wonder why it is ok to use a racial slur. What would happen if I used "blacknigger", or "yellowchink"?

I'm guessing it's because he's probably a liberal.

Give one of those other ones a shot and see how it goes.

[BillyFromTheHills]

Alex, beautiful pictures...thanks!

[BillyFromTheHills]

I'm guessing it's because he's probably a liberal.

Give one of those other ones a shot and see how it goes.

I was in school in Boston during the beginnings of forced busing and got called "honky" alot, as well as being spit on, beat up, etc. Learned not to like the word...

[rebob]

Obs from Saturday behind Whistler. Some scattered patches of depth hoar as thick as 12cm deep on morainal or talus slopes. Spotty, but not a good foundation as we are in the process of building a fairly sturdy bridge over this foundation with rising temps in the alpine and continued sunshine.

Yesterday's warm was taking the edge off surface hoar development at the surface and even impacting some of the near-surface facets, however, this should lead to a spotty distribution pattern as most northerly slopes were not warming to this level.

Coverage depends greatly on aspect. Best skiing near alpine ridges on northerly aspects, esp. where there are remnants of snowfields or glaciers beneath. Skiing fine in alpine lee zones over heather and meadow grasses though in some places they are still sticking through.

Below treeline it is not yet ready for touring...a little unusual skiing through vaccinium bushes sticking out of the snow this time of year. In the meantime, serious snow being made on the WB runs...

[rebob]

Arctic outflow brought unsettled conditions to the Whistler and Duffey areas last night. Obs today off the Duffey in the Western Cayoosh showed 45cm of nice low density over some buried surface hoar and crust, with more consolidated snow beneath the 1cm crust and 12cm of depth hoar at the bottom at 1600m. At 1350m, highway elevation, about 25cm of low density over older snow. Temps dropping to -11 at 1350 at 1600 hrs; -16C at 1890m at 1345 hrs.


140 height of snow at 1890m at TL. Significant reloading with the outflow and a lot of crossloading from ESE. Some slopes approaching threshold and others definitely loaded in ALP.


Glide cracks forming on southerly slopes at 1950-2000m in Marriott Basin. Winter route in pretty good shape from 1600m up. A little thin in trees yet. FSR has good coverage except at small creek crossings (no problem for tourers, who will bridge them).

A little slop over the ice on the lake with about 30cm of very low density over top. Yellow-flagged winter route that avoids Climax Meadow is in good shape with a broken trail right to the hut.

[rebob]

Cool weather is building SH in protected areas and starting the near-surface facetting to progress. Re-loading with winds picking up near alpine ridges is in progress. Lots of touchy slabs that are less likely to heal quickly as temps drop towards the -20C mark. In areas of significant snow depth, the DH layer can still be found beneath some melt-freeze crusts with facets beneath and SH above, especially at 1600-1700m in the Western Cayoosh.

[rebob]

Surface hoar continues to grow in the Western Cayoosh with overnight temps below -20C and daytime temps into the mid negative teens. Surface snow is well-faceted and light unless exposed to outflow winds. Some folks destructive testing south-facing slopes were able to trigger small windslabs above treeline. Snow in trees is pretty much bottomless and does not provide much support for skis, but lots of folks out and poking around...

[rebob]

A few days of sun, a couple of days of warm with a little snowfall in power flurries, and not much has changed in the upper snowpack in the Whistler area over the past week until the past 36 hours, which saw some extreme transport at ridgetops and the creation of sastrugi on windward (SW) aspects. This means some of the facetted snow redistributed two weeks ago has now been re-redistributed back onto NE aspects forming hard slabs in the process. Below this are a variety of layers and combinations, not to mention many shark's teeth not far below the surface in more exposed areas.

Good tippy-toe skiing on alpine NE aspects possible and even some reasonable turns BTL on the right aspects where meadow complexes or banded tree islands predominate. Temps started dropping mid-day today as clearing skies returned, having dropped from 5-7cm of snow late yesterday morning. Not much for obs up higher today as winds were clearly rocking (likely to at least 100kph on ridgetops). Dropping temps were drying snow surfaces down to 1300m by later in the afternoon and re-distributed new snow and near-surface-facets were quite skiable in the right places...

[Alex]

Mostly due to boredom we spent Saturday night at Russet hut and yes, the wind was ROCKING. There was a crazy solo Czech snowshoer that summited Fissile on Saturday via the South face then West Ridge in high winds. Fissile itself was looking gnarlier than normal. Banana Chute looked to be in exciting condition, so on Sunday when the wind mellowed out slightly we went for a look-see. We only made it 1/3 of the way up the apron as snow conditions started to feel funky. We were on a moderately sheltered NW aspect (between 30 and 35 degree slope angle) and I dug a hasty pit. There were two layers at 5cm and 12cm depth respectively that were fracturing easily and were quite brittle. But the icing on the cake was the layer between 12cm and 50cm down that was light styrofoam density (2F) which failed as I was digging out the back of it. It seemed to be bonded very well to itself and likely wouldn't fracture on most slopes UNLESS you found a thin rocky start zone. And it doesn't take rocket surgeon to look around and see plenty of thin rocky start zones. This slab was sitting on an unknown thickness of facets (I didn't care to take the time to measure) and it was clinging to reasonably steep slopes.



I think the danger of this layer will go up as you get on steeper slopes, where it seems to be strong enough to hold itself, but the likely-hood of a human triggered slab goes up. There was no evidence that it had slid out of banana chute, but I didn't care to get any closer to find out what it was like in the gut (although I would have liked to know).
We skied a short, but steep NW chute off Russet Ridge and the top 10cm was falling away easily, but wasn't propagating. But on the apron, I cut out a 10cm deep slab that propagated to 15m wide and ran very slowly down. It wasn't very dangerous, but it was enough to get my heart beating fast and it could very well be dangerous in other situations.



Cowboy ridge had some decent snow (in places), but care was taken to avoid the rocky convex roll at the top.



Singing Pass trail is best done on foot.

The crevasse at Fissile-Whirlwind col spans the whole width from the wind form to Whirlwind Peak.
There were small crevasses visible on the south west facing lobe of the glacier leading up to the col