Today we trenched our way up an east facing alpine slope in the Bow Lake area. With the Bow Summit remote weather station on the fritz, I wasn't sure of actual storm snow amounts. I may not have gone there had I known: trailbreaking was exhausting with 60 cm of ski penetration (knee to mid thigh). Fortunately at treeline there was a buried supportive wind slab allowing for very good skiing, otherwise it would have been downhill french fries in gravy travel.

Unsurprisingly there was widespread evidence of a large natural cycle of storm and wind slabs on pretty much all aspects. With all this unstable snow we kept to supported simple features without overhead exposure.

Of my 50+ days of ski touring guiding this season, today was the most difficult trailbreaking even including my yearly three weeks on Hokkaido, Japan!