Yummy

Gotta love those upslope storms. Hit Nakiska today with good company and had some nice deep snow. Spring time in the rockies baby!

spring storms a comin?

The past week has been more of the same. Finally got into a melt freeze cycle. Been skiing mostly resort, but did manage to head up to Quartz ridge. We ended up getting stormed off of it in a white out. Very strong winds and driving snow. Welcome back winter!! Also got some good footage for the upcoming video.

I'm going to rest up for a few days and recover from my shin bang, in preperation for a forecast that is looking promising for the upcoming week.

couple days resort, couple days back country

Welcome the spring and the first real big avy cycle of the spring. Ski conditions in the back country are shit. Not enough melt freeze yet to glue things together. Every thing seems to be on a hair trigger right now. No expectations of over night freezes either. Things started moving shortly after 9:00 this morning in the Bow zone. Not even going to bother wading through the isothermal snow again tommorrow. Going to check out the resort for some spring skiing over the next few days until things start freezing up over night again.

Above. Photo 3 is a very very very large settlement that occurred in a meadow. The fracture propogated and collapsed the cornice. There's a reason why we weren't exposing ourselves to overhead hazard today, and kept our skin tracks no more than the low 20 degree range. Photo 1 and 2 is a very tiny slab that we cut loose while skiing. You can see that it's very small and isolated to a convex roll, the little fucker did manage to actually break up and slide about a foot.

happy fun times

Got back from my 2 week stint at work and went on an 8 day skiing blitz. Mostly have been hitting the back country, but also got into Wild West, and were the first ones into Delerium when it opened with much storm snow in there. Has been an awesome week for sure.

Avalanche conditions have been quite touchy, and we got a remote trigger to go...from a safe area of course. Also have been skiing some nice chutes at crowfoot that we have been keeping skier compacted, and have been skiing the crap out of the surface hoar in that area since it first started forming up. Also got a nice run in at Purple Bowl today.

I am going to try to start updating the blog on a more regular basis...maybe it's time to start sharing snow condition info on here too. Will see.

Gone to work for rest

Have to work eventually right? Glad i'm only up for 2 weeks instead of 3. I didn't miss anything the 1st week as far as snow conditions, but it's supposed to snow through this week, so there should be lots of fresh for when I get home. Can't wait.

family and powder video

Last week was great. Had some family over and we skied a few days as well as other tourist related activities. They even brought a good dump of powder with them.

Here's a video of the day after they left. Will be working on some footage from their visit when I go to work.

Untitled from Kevin A. on Vimeo.

Some random footage leftovers

We have made the move to HD video for the remainder of the season and will be working on some thing a bit more interesting as far as line difficulty goes. Here's the left over standard def footage that I had no where to put it.

http://vimeo.com/9940515

Bow Peak no go

So we ended up going for the couloir on Bow Peak. Didn't make it as we just weren't comfortable with the temperatures and sun beating on some of the cornices. We did get up into the alpine, and traversed a line across the fan to get a better look into the gut of the couloir. We had a fantastic run down the trees...who says there's no good tree skiing in the rockies? Definately will be coming back for this one, with a much earlier start next time.

a week later

The past week has been more of the same. Hit Bow Summit and found some decent snow. Did a couple days at Sunshine Village since my back country partners were away. Hit Crowfoot glades today and did a few laps in ok snow. There is finally some snow in the forecast for next week. We need more big time.

Went to check out Flower Couloir for tommorrow and there were 4 people in there tracking it up....people are getting into every thing lately with stability being how it is. Going to go take a "look" at Hidden Couloir on Bow Peak in the a.m. before any one hits that one too.

Snow? Anyone seen some?

Spent the last couple days flying solo up at Sunshine. It's good to get on some harder packed variable snow to keep your skills up. However, I really can't wait to get some new fresh deep powder. This drought has to let up some time right? On the plus side, all the high pressure did make for some stable conditions to hit some really cool lines, but right now with the recent wind we're in a bit of a transitional time. Been touching off some slabs off of ridges lately, which makes me not really want to go boot pack any couloirs that go to ridge tops lol.

Let it snow let it snow let it snow.