Cirque Forepeak
brendan.clark,
Saturday 10th February, 2024 8:20PM
Best ski day of the year for me up at Cirque Forepeak! TONS of settlements and shooting cracks in the alpine on the way up. Every 10-15m while breaking trail in the alpine. We kept our angle of ascent mellow and picked a reasonable way to the top with good routefinding. We tagged the true summit of the forepeak from the local highpoint, which we protected with a rope. Used a 240cm sling and about 50m of rope as pro, considering the exposure on both sides to the true highpoint is quite extreme.
While we were faffing around bringing everyone in our team to the summit, several groups decided to ski the steeper slopes directly to the west. Given the number of settlements and cracks we experienced on the way up, we had zero intention of skiing these slopes. But after seeing 10+ people test the slope for us, we decided to ski down that way and it was fine (apart from the sharks).
Good skiing in the alpine but plenty of sharks still around.
Great skiing at treeline.
Better than expected skiing below treeline, not nearly as bad as I was expecting.
Much warmer than forecast, I saw high of -10 forecast but it was -1 at valley bottom. Felt downright warm when the sun came out. The sun packed a punch for sure. Little to no wind, even in the alpine.
Overall a great day out.


Location: 51.69995000 -116.42906000