CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE!!5 mile ride in to the mountain slopes, for some snowshoing and snowboarding.
Base of the ridge that I started snowshoing up.
As I got up onto the ridge and it started to get a bit steeper, I dug a pit to check the snowpack. The avalanche danger was considerable so I was staying off open steep faces with any kind of rollovers.
I dug a pit and noticed the 2 pronounced crusts. The first one about 15 inches below the surface and the second layer 12 inches below that. At the bottom of the snowpack was faceted snow from earlier this winter.
I checked for hardness with my finger, the top 2 layers were soft and below the second layer it was considerably harder and compacted. At the bottom was sugar snow, coarse grain, with no structure.
The crust.
I isolated a block and did a compression test, it took 27 hits on my shovel to propagate a failure. It was not a clean shear, but it did fail on the crust. I was able to pull a block off with my shovel. at the lower crust. I decided that the snowpack was safe on this particular slope. When I snowboarded down, I stayed up high on the ridge and did not drop into the small bowl off the ridge. Better to be safe than sorry. It's all good experience.
One last look back on the mountain range. The trail in is a forest road and was full of moguls, but gotta have the sled for the 12 mile round trip.
The sleds travel in my enclosed trailer, 14 foot double axle FLOE trailer. Keeps them out of the road grime. Check out the video below. This was in the middle of the night on the way home. Road grime...Hit the play button, kinda dark...
1 comment:
Snowboarding is a great sport. I am passionate about it.
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