Went to the Crowfoot Glades are today with Kieran Crimeen, Fred Heikoop, James MacNeil-Mah and Jason – I haven’t been there yet this year so was keen to see what conditions were like.
We skinned up near the Pillow Drainage area and through the boulders near the alpine fans. We took a lap back down through the same area where we found great snow on the steeper xmas tree slopes. We went back up and did two laps on the first alpine fan, the snow here was a little more variable but overall still great skiing. We probed 160cm HS at our highpoint, felt like the temp crust (?) was about 10cm off the ground here but we didn’t actually dig so can’t be 100% sure that was what we were feeling. To finish off the day we skinned over to and skied down roadside facing chute 6 and then the bottom half of chute 5. These chutes still look pretty thin and the features (cliffs/pillows) in chute 6 are skiable but I wouldn’t skiing around at speed in the area just yet due to lack of coverage. The lower forest is actually covered fairly well for late November and getting out this way was very acceptable. Crossing the lake closer to the river was a little sporty, we found moments of open water and extremely thin ice (or was that just packed down snow holding us up?).
Snowing most of the day without wind in the area. Pretty warm out there still too so be careful with the lakes in the near channels/rivers. Heard what we believe was 2 avalanches during the day but didn’t have a visual on them.
