[MCR] Maligne Lake Area Bald Hills

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

Up for an AST course......
-20 in Jasper this morning under cloudy skies in town.
Felt cold in the Maligne parking lot and the thermometer confirmed 
with -34....(must have been the cold spot in Alberta today!)

Decided to go for a short walk and see if things warmed up....-25 at 
the summer trail junction and -20 at treeline in nice sunshine.

TP at treeline showed an ~50-70cm snowpack. top 20cm is 4finger snow 
from earlier this week....midpack is mature facets (F fist sitting on 
the decomposing rain crust down at 54cm.) We were getting CTE and CTM 
shears collapsing in the facet layer above the crust. Below treeline 
the pack is still unconsolidated not stiff enough to react as a unit. 
In many shallow places the rain crust is barely there if at all, 
mostly decomposed from the cold temps.

Wind affect was noted higher in the alpine and would suspect things 
up high are quite different, but didn't get that far up.

Some minor activity in the steep NE bowl above the hitching rail but 
couldn't see anything else on the surrounding peaks...
Hard travelling if off the trail.
Ski penetration was down 45cm, foot penetration is pretty much the 
ground. If you tried to ski down off the road (which we didn't!) it 
would probably not be very nice at all...

Peter Amann
Mountain Guide




Peter Amann
pamann at incentre.net