North Black Prince yoyos (Blacksmith Ridge) Off-Trail skiing on 5-Mar

Participants: Gordon, Jenny, Marianne, Mark

After the recent Avalanche cycles and snow falls I wanted to check out conditions in Kananaskis country. Hazard was down to triple moderate but with all the big winds involved in the event

Picked the glades on Blacksmith ridge as the destination because it was easy to access, had the potential to ski well and offered avoidable access to more open areas.

We started up the trail at about 10am and skied directly up to the top of the glades beyond the avalanche path known as the dogleg. As we emerged from the trees the Snowpack varied quite a bit based on minor aspect changes. There were spots where the 20cm of fresh just scraped off a hard crust... areas where it was just fresh on a nicely supporting base .... and the odd skier trap where you could punch all the way down to ground. Happily we were able to find some nice lines in the glades where the happy category predominated.

In order to avoid the tighter trees lower down we skied out onto the dogleg for the final run and found the recent snow was on top of a fairly solid crust. It was skiable but not near as fun as the glades. Lower down on the north side of the dog leg the crust was also less evident in amongst the Christmas trees.

From the bottom of the dogleg you could see up the next avalanche path, it is steeper than the dogleg and exposed to a bowl below the high point of the ridge. On the way in we saw two skiers on the uptrack right up the center and Avalanche debris coming down to almost the uptrack level. On the way out the debris were covering the top couple switchbacks. The debris did not appear to be very thick but we were relieved to see their vehicle gone from the roadside.

Thanks to Jenny, Marianne and Mark for coming out and making it a very pleasant day in the mountains, and particularly to Mark for driving.

Skiing the Glades

Nice turns in the trees

Nice turns in the trees

Bottom of the Run Selfie