Asulkan Youngs

<p>Went up toward Youngs Peak today. 15 cms of new snow above a firm crust near the parking lot turned into 30-50 cms of powder mixed with some thin buried temperature slabs in the Tree Triangle. A fair amount of wind transport from the SW in the AM was covering up- and down-tracks on the climbers right side of Youngs headwall fairly rapidly. Started climbing the headwall and noticed a 30-40 cms thick buried storm/temperature slab under ~20 cms of new snow. Called it quit and skied down the skier's far right where boot top to knee deep turns were had to the tree triangle. The surface felt a bit denser with 5-10cms soft windslabs where it had been worked by the wind. The snow became moist around 1800m and was very heavy by the time we reached the bottom of the Mouse Trap. No solar activity on The Ravens as the clouds rolled in early afternoon. A size 2.5 solar triggered point release avalanche was observed around 11:00 AM on the South East gully of Abbott. It has started mid-chute ~2100m and stopped mid fan just above the trees looker's left of the Mushroom People. Looked like 30-40 cms of storm snow running on the sun/temperature crust without stepping down. Of note, there was quite a few people on the glacier with no harness in sight, I seriously doubt any of those parties had glacier gear with them. Some windward areas of the Asulkan Glacier see a fair amount of wind scouring and thin snow bridges can hide more than what you signed up for. Also, investigating the full top 1 meter of the snowpack before committing to a steep ascent like the headwall seems like a good idea. Some people reported feeling a stiff and supportive layer under the 20 cms of softer snow and interpret it as a green light. This stiffer layer (1F) was indeed 30-40 cms thick and sitting on a 5 cms weak layer (4F). This was also getting loaded rapidly by the wind on the looker's right half of the headwall. A group skied Forever Young and reported knee deep snow with heavy sloughing and firm runnels down the middle.</p>

Terrain Ridden

Alpine slopes.

Terrain Avoided

Convex slopes, Steep slopes, Sunny slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.

Snow Conditions

Deep powder, Powder.

Weather Conditions

Windy, Cloudy, Sunny.