Went for a long beautiful walk to the alpine yesterday around Black Tusk. The road to the parking lot is not plowed for the last 1km from highway 99 and was snow and ice, so 4x4 or chains might be needed if it snows more. THe trail is snow free until 900m at which point it is skinable. Skiing down at the end of the day is doable but harrowing so please take care.

Once above 1200m the snowpack depth increases dramatically. Strong winds from the last storm have stripped windward aspects of a bit of snowpack so expect many sharks in those locations. Northerly aspects/lee aspects were pleasantly filled in. Snow depths ranged from 80cms at 1600m in Taylor Meadows, to 165cms at 2100m north aspect near the Tusk itself. We did a very hasty snowpit to get a glimpse into the deeper north snowpack I just mentioned, and found a well settled mid/lower snowpack with two recent storm shears down 20/60cm exhibiting moderate compression test results of resistant planar characteristics. We observed 24-48 hour old shallow fresh wind slab on a steep north wind loaded aspect at 2100m but only size 1. 20-25cms of recent storm snow above 1400m, with some settlement and minor sun affected snow on solar aspects.

It looks like one more series of storms on the horizon before a bit of a high pressure so hopefully we drop some big loads on the ground to fill things in. I would still maintain from my current observations around the sea to sky that there is not really any skiing to do below 1200m, and the crux of any adventure right now is travelling safely and easily between 900m and 1400m.

Evan Stevens
www.zenithmountainguides.ca