Dec 29, 2012-Jan 1, 2013, Manning Provincial Park

These observations should be somewhat relevant to folks north of Washington Pass.

Carla, Franklin, Susan, and I took an extended field trip to Windy Joe Lookout for the weekend. In summary, the best skiing is far from the lookout, but it's a pretty place. It was a refreshing break from the usual.

Snow: Snowed ~2-4" on the 29th and <1/2" on the 31st. 29th cloudy, 30th full sunshine, 31st overcast becoming clear, 1st sunny with inverted temps. Sunniest slopes had a thin suncrust from the sunshine on the 30th. We played in the shade after that. Snowpack isn't deep. <1m at 4400'.  Surface hoar is growing (see photo, taken the morning of the 1st), nothing more than 1/8" on the morning of the 30th or 3/8" on the morning of the 1st.

Stability: Nothing moved, no slides observed. Snow from the lookout roof (we used it for water; almost nobody can pee up that high) had a well-defined shear plane or two ~8" down, but we didn't make a systematic investigation. Windslab high on Frosty was essentially unresponsive.

Skiing: Fun. Best skiing was in the protected bowl below Frosty. A burn on the Windy Joe/Frosty ridge was good too.


Edit: More photos are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64728404@N03/sets/72157632420834816/

A word of caution -- the area around the lookout really is quite flat. The GPS gurus in the group claimed that by the end of the third day, we'd put in ~30 miles of travel and gotten less than 5000' of skiing. Windy Joe is a good place for a rambly tour, but perhaps not the best choice if you're looking for turns.