20-21

Large feathers of crystal hoar were seen on localized, more shaded slopes during a ski tour of Pebble Creek. Photo: B. Fredlund

We went up into the basin to poke around and see what the basal layer is going to be for the season. The weather remained super prime all day long, no wind at all until we made it back to the car around 14:00, then it started to pick up only slightly. Temps ranged from -5C to around 2C.
While we were on shady SW aspects below treeline, we found 10-15cm of sugary facets on top of a small 1cm crust likely from the late October snow. That was the only aspect we saw that crust on.
We ventured out into the basin and it was like skinning through a sandbox on the shaded terrain, sunny snow became spring like conditions by midday. We skied some lines on NE-N aspects where we found 20-30cm of snow, all facets ranging from 0.5mm at the surface to almost 2mm at the base of the snow pack. Overall the skiing was not horrible given conditions, just a bunch of weak snow.
Avalanche activity was observed on S-SW aspects below treeline in the form of point release wet slides similar to spring time slides releasing at exposed rocks.