Joffre Lakes – March 13, 2020
A northerly blew through the Duffey and brought strong winds to the alpine. We wanted to see for ourselves how things were affected and if so, how much. Up we went only to feel the full force of strong arctic outflow winds at tree-line.
Slabs were forming; fractures were propogating. This was no time to take chances. We pulled the plug and bailed for the trees
Central Duffey Zissou Zone – March 16, 2020
The way the world was going we figured skiing would shut down pretty soon. Lending to this pessimism (reality?) was the recent Arctic outflow wind event which had decimated snow quality. It has warmed up a bit so wasn’t quite at the -20’s of the past few days. We picked a N facing zone that probably had gotten windslab but hopefully we would be able to avoid sun-effect on solar aspects while skiing trees.
It was still cold (-11@ at valley. -11@ridgetop). Winds had backed off so winds were light at ridgeline. However all N, NE and NW aspects now had a stout pronounced windslab (2 – 5cms pencil). With W, S and E aspects having suncrust this means that all aspects have subpar quality. We did find some good skiable terrain below treeline but ya gotta look. Ttreebombs, windslab and suncrust now meant that many routes up require advanced skinning skills. We toured for views; found some decent snow and got to check out cool new zones
