[MCR] Chickadee Valley, Kootenay National Park

I guided up there yesterday and found fair dust on a soft buried suncrust skiing on a south facing slide path of Boom Mountain.  The winds raged all day long at treeline and above, so we didn't venture very high.  A quick hole just below treeline (same south aspect) found a mostly low density snowpack of only 50 cm.  No surface hoar found in this pit, but we were up high enough that previous wind and sun would have destroyed any that formed.  I wouldn't be so sure of its absence on shaded and/or sheltered slopes.

Of course with the forecasted snow, all will (hopefully) change.

Ken BÉLANGER

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