I spent the past few days camping and skiing in the Central Kootenays. We found good skiing above 1700m. Over the course of the trip approximately 4cm of snow fell. Cool temperatures, broken skies and light to moderate winds have preserved surface snow conditions.

Good skiing was found in sheltered alpine features and smooth treeline/below tree line avalanche paths. A thin melt freeze crust was observed on isolated steep sheltered east and south aspect features below 2000m.

Wind effect from last week on W-N alpine/tree line features has started to facet and break down and is skiing well.

Height of snow ranged from 80cm at 1700m to 115cm at 2300m.

10-15cm of aged powder overlies a progressively resistant mid pack. The Dec 14 interface had been affected by last week’s warming and was unreactive in areas travelled. The Dec 6 MFcr complex was 15-20cm thick and overlies rounding facets.

Thin shallow rocky areas above 2000m exhibit a basal weakness with 4 finger minus facets below the Dec 6 MFcr complex.

Forests remain thin and faceted with 60-80cm of cover up to 2000m, making for sub-optimal travel conditions both uphill and down.

Lots of early season hazards exist.

Happy Holidays,
Conor Hurley
www.arctosguides.com