Skied the South Churchill Slide path near Sunwapta resort in Jasper National Park. First tracks post storm, perhaps all winter?
Traveled below treeline through to treeline elevations stopping below the snow covered rock slab at 2300m. -20 roadside and -12 at 2300m.
Trail breaking was pretty easy through 40cm of low density storm snow. Support was variable below treeline but not so frustrating as to be arduous. As we came out into the open at the bottom of historic run-out, support got better and travel easier. We we're fairly conservative in route selection for our up track. Previous large natural activity had run mid-storm and traveled to mid-path. Considering new transported load and re-loaded bed surfaces overhead we felt better with wide spacing when moving from protected safe zones.
No truly obvious signs of instabilities underfoot like shooting cracks or whumpfing, though the snowpack does have a suspiciously hollow feel to it.
Dug a profile at treeline and got hard compression test results down 35, 70 and 120cm. An extended column test failed across the whole block down 35cm with planar results. This seems to support the bulletin's concerns but we concluded that while it appeared to show low probability of triggering the consequences are pretty dire; we are skiing a giant slide path?!
Spectacular skiing down planar slopes from top to bottom. Yes, I did say 'spectacular', it does get pretty good in Jasper as we progress into spring!
The coming snow and warm weather will likely change my comfort level for traveling in the slide path but, for the short while it's an excellent choice for those looking for classic Rockies champagne powder turns.

DK
Visitor Safety,
Jasper National Park.