[MCR] Rogers Pass

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

Been skiing at Rogers Pass for the past week. The old surfaces were  
buried on January 27 and there is a variety of depths of storm snow  
covering that interface, elevation and aspect dependant, but probably  
30-60 cm on average. This interface is either surface hoar, facets,  
suncrust or a combination of any of the above.

Visibility has been mostly poor and we haven't gone much above  
treeline. We have triggered numerous sensitive slabs at that  
elevation but they have been very soft and not propagating far, all  
have been size 1. Some of these were remote triggered. Otherwise  
there has been a surprising lack of avalanche activity, but since  
there has been a fair bit of moderate wind from the W or SW, I  
suspect there has been windslab activity on the Jan 27 layer in the  
alpine that we haven't been able to see. There hasn't been a report  
of an avalanche on the December facets for some time but we have  
definitely kept that layer in the back of our mind this week.

We have skied terrain up to 40+ degrees where there hasn't been wind  
effect, but as soon as there is evidence of wind we have pulled in  
the horns and tried to avoid it. We have also limited our exposure to  
large slopes above whenever there has been wind loading on the upper  
ridges.

Ski quality has been excellent all week!

Mark Klassen
Mountain Guide
mark at alpinism.com


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