Nadda to the Bonnington This Year

Gord, Jenny, Ron, Carole, Killaine & I were planning to do the Bonnington Range traverse, near Nelson, over New Years this year.  Unfortunately, we decided not to do it.

The initially low snowfalls for this winter had, by about December 23rd, left very little snow in the Bonnington range area - meaning that travel below treeline would have been very difficult (i.e. not enough snow to cover up the bush and rocks), and above treeline, it would have been equally tricky (same conditions, but more windblown).  This low snowpack, coupled with a period of very cold temperatures, also set up a snowpack that was very weak.

Sure enough, about a week before we were to go, it started snowing.  The new snow load on the weak base created very high avalanche conditions - boosting the hazard to at least considerable to high for the period that we would have been skiing.

We definitely made the right choice not to head out, although it was a very painful one to make.  One of the things I look forward to every winter is meeting up with my friends to do some fun backcountry skiing together.  It always pains me when a date draws near, and one has to continually start watching the weather and trying to figure out what the conditions will be like.