Regional Summaries

Ski reports are continuing to trickle in from the Rockies and Columbias, and a few people have been out swinging ice tools in the Rockies...so despite the good mountain biking in the Bow Valley over the last several days, winter has officially arrived.

Perhaps because of the cold, grey weather and scattered snowfalls there is even less reports than usual for this time of year. After some sleuthing this morning it sure seems like we have had a recent avalanche cycle in the big mountains and that may continue over the weekend. Lots of September/October snowfalls and some recent high winds so it shouldn't be a big surprise.

The snow line has been creeping up in the last few days on solar aspects but looking at the forecast it seems that this might change again before the weekend. Saturday looks to be bringing varying amounts of rain/snow over the entire forecast area and Sunday looks consistently dryer and cooler throughout. Precipitation amounts vary widely but at this time it looks like about 5mm in the lower Bow Valley and up to 16mm along the Divide and Columbias.

The Larches are turning and my calves are burning from postholing in the new snow. Alpine snow amounts varied but between 30 to 50 cm probably remains on North facing glaciers. Less possibly on south facing glaciers and there will be a crust on the sunny snow after several warm days. This amount of snow has freshened up some routes by covering the old ice and choss and a lot of the snow blew or has melted off the alpine rock. There is (or was) some good looking dribbles of moderate angle ice forming in the O'Hara alpine.