Spent a long weekend up at the Rogers Pass seeking sheltered areas and avoiding aspects and features where we suspected the Jan 29th PWL was lingering.
Weather: Up to 30cm of new snow with moderate to strong westerly winds on Saturday. Clear skies and warm alpine temps on Sunday followed by mild temps and an additional 10cm with moderate to strong SW winds on Monday.
Conditions: Challenging trail breaking and high winds kept us at lower tree line and below tree line elevations on Saturday where we found excellent skiing in sheltered areas in the Connaught creek area. Clear skies and settled storm snow made for good travel on Sunday. From our high point at Bruins Pass we observed extensive wind effect in the alpine and noted soft slab developing in most features lee to the westerly winds. On Monday the winds ramped up again along with an additional 10cm of new snow
Snowpack: After Saturdays snow the Jan 29th interface was down 50-90cm depending on aspect, elevation and exposure to the west winds. A test profile at the top of the 8812 bowl had moderate resistant planar results on a sun crust interface down 60cm (no surface hoar found). We noted similar results below Balu pass. With the winds, fluctuating temperatures and clear skies on Sunday everything from sastrugi, wind pressed, dry powder, soft slab and sun crust could be found. Our primary concerns on Monday were wind slabs in the alpine and open tree line areas and the Jan 29 persistent weak layer. We gave larger SE-NW features a miss and we’re mindful of exposure to overhead hazard. There were plenty of small visible reminders of the Jan 29 PWL and the overall uncertainty of its distribution should still be a concern for those venturing into the Rogers Pass in the near future.

Have fun out there and ski safe!