the vortex

skied the vortex in the early afternoon on monday. traversing across to our line (lookers left in photo) you could definitely feel a firm sun or wind crust under the storm snow, it felt quite supportive with no whumphing or cracking as we cut across to our line, very firm and took probably somewhere between 15-25lbs of force to get my upside down pole to break through it. in the gully feature we skied you could feel each turn the snow changing from soft to firmer here and there but the fan below the cliffs was phenomenal skiing. another group of two dropped in after us and ended up doing two laps of the vortex after us and as you can see in the photo they triggered a number of loose dry avalanches. also worth noting, pipestone bowl is a fresh canvas, spectacular skiing!