[MCR] Northern Selkirks: Sorcerer Lodge

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

We just spent a great week at Sorcerer Lodge, Feb 6-13. This area is  
north east of Rogers Pass at the head of Ventego Creek.

Our primary concerns were two surface hoar layers from late January  
that were buried about 20-30 cm down. Other concerns were the Dec 29  
surface hoar down 70-90 cm and a new surface hoar layer buried Feb 9  
which was down about 10 cm by the end of the week. This Feb 9 layer  
was combined with some suncrusts on southwest aspects, but that crust  
was not widespread.

Although all these layers were reactive to some sort of test during  
the week at one point or another, only the late January layers  
reacted to skiers. Very soft slabs lay atop them. We triggered small  
avalanches in two different zones but they both had the same terrain  
characteristics: 2300-2400 m, east aspect, with slight wind effect.  
In one area we purposely triggered about a dozen size 1 to 1.5 very  
soft slabs that failed on surface hoar that lay on an old, hard bed  
surface from a previous avalanche cycle. In another area we  
accidentally triggered a couple more size 1 avalanches about the size  
of tiddlywinks. The bed surface was softer here and the slab didn't  
propagate very far.

I suspect the surface hoar in the upper part of the snowpack will  
become more reactive with any slight weather inputs: a bit more snow,  
a bit of wind (we basically had no wind all week), some warming or  
some sort of combination of all three. This may be happening as I  
type this.

We had a lot of fun this week with minimal interaction with the  
instability by avoiding areas where we witnessed signs of unstable  
snow and avoiding terrain that our nearest neighbours were triggering  
avalanches in. We were still able to ski moderate sized slopes up to  
40 degrees all week, although with any sort of change in the weather  
we would have had to pull on the reins pretty quickly!

Mark Klassen
Mountain Guide
www.alpinism.com


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