Skied in the Black Prince/Hero zone today. Spectacular and sunny, utterly calm with a low of -8 C and high of +4 C.

Today we skied open alpine slopes up to 35 degrees. It's very rugged in the trees, especially off existing tracks, where snow levels taper to less than 40 cm.

There's a shallow (<100 cm) and heavily faceted snow pack with big surface hoar well up into the alpine. The underlying melt-freeze crusts from last month's deluges still carry pretty well except down below treeline where it's all rotting away.

In the alpine the only recent avalanche activity was on steep south aspects from yesterday afternoon. We saw an old 30 cm crown below a large cornice on a windloaded feature that had run naturally during the last storm over a week ago.

Needless to say it will be exciting when it snows again, but for now skiing is pretty darned good in the open alpine. Tracks are pretty much everywhere.

Regards,
Tom Wolfe
Mountain Guide ACMG/IFMGA
Guided Heli-accessed Ski Touring Lodges and Avalanche Skill (AST) Courses - www.sawback.com/current-trips/