Quick report

Cathedral Bowl

Avalanche.org observerCentral Sierra Nevada
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Quick report

Skied Cathedral Bowl today, including one of the SE facing couloir features to looker's right. Snow depths at the trailhead were about 4-6" at 6300'. The approach had a few talus fields to navigate through, but there was not much issue linking continuous snow, and the bowl itself was filled in nicely. We stuck to the far looker's right, S facing wall, and observed no cracking or collapsing. The E and NE facing paths at the top of the bowl did not appear to show any signs of avalanche debris, although each of these was capped by a large cornice, and appeared wind textured. Winds were out of the south, and mostly light to moderate, but there was a little bit of snow movement occurring at the ridges. We booted one of the entrances that faced due SE, and the snow was nicely supportable, with boot pen to the knee. In hand shears, there was very little slab formation, and the most recent storm snow was rightside up. The last two hundred feet to the ridge narrowed into a very tight couloir, which appeared loaded, so we climbed through some shallower, rocky sections to the ridge. When dropping in to this section, we ski cut a few 4-6", 20 foot slabs off, but these only ran for a hundred feet or so. Below this, and into the main runout of the bowl, the snow showed very little slabby character. With the exception of the very top section, we saw no signs of instability today. Skies were mostly overcast today, with periods of hazy sunshine, and temps felt warm.