Iceberg Lettuce

PowderDreams , Thursday 13th February, 2025 8:15PM

We skied up to the base of Taiya from the Summit Creek drainage intending to ski a big south facing line, but opted for mellow slopes once we got there due to the marginal snow conditions - cold, crunchy, sad times. For all of our trip the snow was hard and wind packed, some dust on crust in patches - with the exception of the treed features close to the highway which had soft, fluffy powder in abundance. We dug a pit near the line we initially planned to ski, on the south face of Taiya at 1390m elevation. Slope angle was 29 degrees. Pit results: - 260cm of snow total - ~4cm layer of firm old wind affected wind slab on top, which then softens under that to a crust 20cm from the top - firm snow to 40cm from top, where there is an ice crust - another crust at 50cm - our ECT test yielded a nil result - no slab failure or propagation