I did some recreational skiing in the Joffre Lakes Provincial Park today. Yesterday’s storm snow ranged from a few centimeters at valley bottom to 15cm in the alpine. There was widespread soft wind effect with evidence of a few size 1-1.5 natural storm slabs in immediate lee features between 1900-2500m on NE-NW aspects.

The recent storm snow was reactive to skier traffic where it had been wind affected or redistributed by the wind. We ski cut two size 1.5 soft slab avalanches in immediate lee features. 5-15cm deep x 30m wide. The storms slabs were touchy.

Coverage on the Matier glacier ranged from bare ice to 4m plus. Typical probing ranged between 265-300cm.

We climbed the north ridge on Mt Matier and skied the WNW face. Travel on the ridge was quite good, with a bit of deep bootpacking and rimed snow on the down climb to the ski route. An ice axe and crampons made the climbing feel nice and secure.

We ski cut the face on belay and triggered a size 1.5 soft slab on the skier’s right side of the face. The slab was ~5-15cm deep by 30m wide. The bed surface skied well, stiff styrofoam in texture; whereas the unaffected part of the face was 5-15cm of settled powder which sluffed with rider traffic.

Below 1700m on west aspects the surface snow was moist in the afternoon.