Afton SE Couloir

<p>Went for what we considered a somewhat sheltered line from the SW and N winds today. We were not so keen on going up the Forest of the Crushed Souls and instead decided to push near the toe of the Lily Glacier and assess the overhead on the west face of Afton before traversing back to its NW ridge. We were happy to see that most of the west face slidepaths had went naturally to SZ 2 that had stopped on the bench with the reverse loading and crossloading in the last 48 hours. We also observed two fresh (last 24 hours) SZ 2-2.5 from reverse loading on Ursus Major just climber's left of the Christmas Couloir (see picture). Winds were strong from the WSW at ridgetop in the morning with moderate wind transport (see picture) but dropped to moderate by the afternoon. We eventually gained the NW ridge of Afton and skinned up on mostly windpressed snow until reaching the start of the bootpack. The bootpack was a mix of facets on boulders with moats in between and was a little sporty. We did not go to the summit of Afton and instead traversed right to the entrance of the SE couloir. Fresh wind loading was obvious on the skiers right of the couloir while the far skiers left near the top was scoured down to a crust on which old tracks were visible. A SZ 2 windslab was accidentally triggered at a slight convexity 1/6th of the way down the couloir and the skier was able to fight through the thin slab that started 2m above its position (see incident tab and pictures). The bed surface varied from P to 1F and offered okay skiing conditions. The skiing was all time from the Rampart Bowl all the way to valley bottom with lots of sloughing and that distinct surface hoar noise.</p>

Terrain Ridden

Alpine slopes, Convex slopes, Steep slopes.

Terrain Avoided

Sunny slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

Slab avalanches today or yesterday.

Snow Conditions

Wind affected, Powder.

Weather Conditions

Cold, Windy, Cloudy, Sunny.