Robson Backcountry Adventures spent the past week in the mountains surrounding McBride, traveling up various peaks and drainages while guiding and conducting avalanche training courses. The week started off with a significant temperature inversion and highs reaching +6C on Lucille by mid-day on Tuesday (going above 0C Monday night at 02:00). Strong winds helped keep the snow surface cool and dry, but we quickly received two significant snowfall events, one on Wednesday, Jan. 8th and another on Friday, Jan. 10th. Lingering snowfall on the other days all helped to accumulate total HST amounts of up to 65 cms in certain drainages (very drainage-dependent). In general, the Cariboos received less snow during this time (20-35cms) while the Rockies saw the snowpack increase 25-50% (40-65cms HST) in just 3 days. This rapid loading of the snowpack posed concern for storm slabs and windslabs as it sat on a facet layer formed during the cold snap just after New Years.

Despite the warm temperatures, snow density remained light at higher elevations, creating fantastic ski conditions and no storm slab problem. Winds were SW-NW and generally light to moderate (strong Friday evening). We maintained vigilance, generally avoiding any wind-exposed ALP/TL feature due to reactive wind slabs being the primary concern. Surprisingly, we saw no natural avalanche activity and just two size 1 sled-triggered windslab avalanches in the Lucille riding area (see photo) on Sunday (one was 12 hrs old). Multiple whumphs and one shooting crack were observed on McBride Peak both Friday and Saturday. HS was around 150cms @ TL on the Rockies side and 120cms on the Cariboos side. Of note was in the Kristi drainage on Thursday where there was just 60cms of snow with a 1cm MFcr just below the surface @ 1300m. We do not know how high that crust persisted and elected to stay out of there for the rest of the week.

Overall, it has been a fantastic week of learning, skiing and playing in the mountains. Play safe and enjoy all that fresh snow everyone!