[MCR] Blue Thunder Ski Traverse - Cariboos

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

Spent five days putting a new ski traverse around the North Blue and  
Thunder River alpine area of the Cariboos with practicum student Riel  
Macboudreau, 
Really fun and sporty terrain with outstanding scenery. Our objective  
was to also get over the Miledge glacier complex and further develop  
this ski traverse but our progress was thwarted by a lack of  
overnight freezing.

Weather
The past five days was a typical spring experience with periods of  
intense precip dropping 2-5 cm of new snow or (rain below 1800 m),  
then clearing with intense solar radiation, convection clouds, some  
short blasts of moderate NW winds and air temperatures between -1.0  
and + 9.0.

Snowpack Conditions 
Above 1800m the mountains have still been receiving regular inputs  
with up to 40 cm of new snow over the past 10 days above  
2000m.  Snowpack depth is still between 3.0-4.5m at tree line.
Ski penetration was 5-20 cm and varied with aspect and deep  
isothermal snow on steep south aspects. Overnight of May 3rd a strong  
wind event created a stiff slab on north and west aspects but we had  
little reactivity during travel over steep terrain.
In general the upper 1.0 m of snow is a layered dogs breakfast of new  
snow, moist rain or sun effected snow and weak melt freeze crusts  
with some ephemeral dry snow on true north aspects above 2300m. Due  
to the regular new snow inputs this area has not developed a good  
solid travelling surface yet. There was snow cover right to valley  
bottom at Hwy#5.

Avalanche Observations
Experienced one large whumpf on a flat morainal feature at 2000m,  
only triggered it when I took my skis off during snack time.
The sun was our avalanche button. Lot's of very large wet loose  
radiation releases running from ridge line to valley bottom. These  
loose wet avalanches carried a lot of volume, running full path on  
hard sun/temperature crusts.
As soon as the clouds obscured the sun, the radiation releases would  
all but stop enabling us to travel across the run outs.

The most concerning avalanche observations were several deep slab  
avalanches we observed in the lower portion of the Thunder River  
valley. The start zones were exclusively confined to north aspects at  
approximately 1500 m in steep but very skiable below tree line  
terrain. Fracture lines looked to be about 1-1.5 m thick and appeared  
to be sliding on a hard bed surface, these had very extensive  
propagation. One looked to be a size 4 and pushed over some mature  
trees extending the historical run out.Cornices have not been very  
active in this neck of the woods yet, with much of their mass still  
to come down. The very warm temperatures forecasted for the week  
ahead should get them dropping.

Overall, the mountains here are finally in transition and anyone  
still venturing out skiing should still be thinking about deeper  
releases on buried crusts in skiable terrain on all aspects, even at  
lower elevations. Even when you have a thick crust supporting your  
travel there may be something unsavoury lurking deeper in the snowpack.

Followed two Thunder river grizzlies out the valley, and the North  
Blue grizzly came out about 10 days ago. The wolves and wolverines  
liked to walk over top the grizzly tracks in places leaving evidence  
of a menagerie of wildlife activity.

Dana Foster Ludwig
ACMG Ski Guide/CAA Prof Member
Snowy Mountain Alpine Tours
Blue River - Clearwater BC
P 250 674 2988

Thunder Glacier
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 3667 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/mcr/attachments/20110508/dfd4a364/attachment-0004.bin>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: DSC03139.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 31491 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/mcr/attachments/20110508/dfd4a364/attachment-0003.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------



-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 4 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/mcr/attachments/20110508/dfd4a364/attachment-0005.bin>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: DSC03145.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 30765 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/mcr/attachments/20110508/dfd4a364/attachment-0004.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 3 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/mcr/attachments/20110508/dfd4a364/attachment-0006.bin>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: DSC03178.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 22856 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/mcr/attachments/20110508/dfd4a364/attachment-0005.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------

DSC03139.JPG


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 20 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/mcr/attachments/20110508/dfd4a364/attachment-0007.bin>