Quick report
- Collapsing
- isolated
Toured up to the bottom of Stairway Chutes 1-4. Climbing up, wind was calm to moderate, depending on ridge exposure. Skinning was ok in most places, but challenging in some places with more wind-stripped patches or sun affected patches. At the bottom of Stairway chute 1, we dug a snow pit after feeling faceted snow about 35 down. The snow pit was dug on NE slope on a 36 degree slope. The snow pit had about 5-10cm of F snow, then 1F slab down to 35CM, where there was a 5CM layer of broken facets with other fragments. Below the weak layer, there was about 10-15cm of what seemed to be more weak/faceted snow. Below that, was P hard slab. Total snow depth was about 1.5M. An ECT resulted in ECTPEQ1SC@35cm down, with the block sliding out on its own. We observed one rider boot/ride the slope and there were other prior tracks, but no evidence of prior avalanches. We backed out of chute 1 and investigated farther chutes. Two additional pits dug between chute 1 & 2 and below chute 3 either did not have the prior weak layer of broken facets or the layer was much smaller. The depth of the at both of these snow pits was about 2.75-3M, so significantly deeper, perhaps the weak layers were not as well developed in more protected chutes. Results in the second pit were ECTX and in the third CTN. Two of our party booted coulour 4 and reported conditions consistent with the third snow pit and a windy ridgetop transition. Our party skied back to the car after the prior two returned. We have some images/videos (e.g., of block falling out), but limited service/website error (map also doesn’t load to mark location).