Yesterday we skied east facing terrain off the south shoulder of Twin Cairns towards Grizzly Lake near Sunshine Village Resort. On the approach trail we saw numerous steep rolls that had slid naturally during the last big cycle. The crowns were about half a metre deep. We dug a test pit at 2330 m on a 23 degree slope to isolate a 30 x 30 cm column for testing. While cutting the back of the column (zero taps) it failed suddenly and planar in nature on the surface hoar layer (well preserved 5 mm crystals) buried on Dec 31. This layer was 60 cm deep in a 180 cm snowpack.

We also got the layer to fail with 13 taps on an extended column test, 30 x 90 cm wide. We then got a Rutschblock 4 result (first jump) on the same layer.

We had numerous whumpfs throughout the day and remotely triggered an unsupported roll 10 m away on this layer.

We had excellent ski quality with about 11 cm of new snow from the night before but stuck to low angle, well supported terrain that could not slide.