Oct20, 2005,Wesach Mtn.,Terrace,NW B.C.  

October 13,2005.  Wesach Mountain, Terrace, Northwest B.C.

Game on.  After patiently awaiting a break in the continuous gray and wet, a gamble was made and won.  Camped at the end of south douglas logging road and hoped to make a break for it come first light.  With low temps and high precip in the past week, the gut said go powder skiing.  Just had to wrap my head around it.  The gut was right.   Wesach produces yet again.

4500ft asl: 20cm HS
5000ft asl: 40cm HS
5500ft asl: 90cm HS
6000ft asl:105cm HS
6200ft asl:114cm HS

Donned skis and skins at about 4500ft on firm snow.  From 5000ft up ski pen increased to a max of about 20cm.  Dug a quick pit at 6200ft.  No stability tests performed.  I  noticed a clean shear (while digging pit) down 30cm under a thin m/f or temperature crust.   Checked snowpack density and as aside from the top 20 cm of four finger density the remainder was either one finger plus or pencil.  Had to leave pit early due to incoming cloud bank and impending whiteout.  Took two runs in the upper East Bowl.  Shin deep turns in creamy dry hero snow.  The ski pen increased in the middle of the run and had some nice knee deep turns in sheltered snow.  The lower portion of the run required a bit of routefinding to find smooth snow without visible danger zones of hidden rock bumps.  The only visible recent avy activity was a size 2.5 slab that spilled down a  northeast facing fourtyfive degree couloir into the middle/lower portion of East Bowl.   The crown was slightly filled in with new snow.  Starting el. was about 6000ft and the slide fell about 1200ft.  


October 20, 2005.  Wesach Mountain, Terrace, Northwest B.C

The day began and ended with clear skies.  First bluebird in a while.  It was nice to finally see the terrain that was skied.  Opted to ski the West Bowl area of  Wesach mountain.  Skinnable snow was appreciated after 40 minutes of hiking.  For a given elevation, the East Bowl area had more snow and better overall coverage for a greater verticle drop.  The lower fifth of the run featured variably supportive rain/temperature crust.  The remainder of the run was overlain with wind affected dry snow.  The crust ended  at about 4600 feet.  There were numerous either partially filled or visible sagging bridged crevasses.  Other interesting features were huge rock blocks and boulders strewn for quite a distance down the glacier and constant spindrift avalanches flowing down mini gullies from the ridgeline south of the bowl.  Strong south quadrant winds at ridgetops were noted with great plumes of snow blowing off surounding peaks, especially later in the afternoon.  Wind in the protected bowl itself was nil to variably light.  Temps ranged from -8 in the morning at 4000 feet to -1 at 6000 feet at noon.  Surface snow temp was -8 at 6000 feet.  Snow depths at 5600 feet ranged from 55 to 110 cm.  A hasty pit at 6000 feet on a 40 degree slope revealed a snowpack depth of 75cm and showed multiple clean shears throughout.  Observations of surrounding terrain showed dramatically wind affected snow.  Avalanches in the immediate area include a size 1 dry snow deposit where a long 45 degee plus couloir enters a large steep north facing bowl at 5000 feet and a size 1 shallow snowpack wet snow avalanche scouring to ground in very steep rocky terrain about 400meters east of the aforementioned couloir. This one appears to have began at around 5000 feet. From this elevation down, large scale pinballing was visible on most snow covered slopes. Cracking but no release was noted in small pockets of unsupported slab formed in lee areas of a recessional moraine. The skiing itself was three runs in snow of variable quality, ranging from nice settled wind pressed dry, to wind crust, slab and varibly supportive rain/temperature crust. This bowl offers about 2000 verticle feet of skiing if one chooses to risk rock damage. Reasonably base safe skiing limits the vert to about 1800 feet. It was a very nice day in the mountains.