Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
We travelled along the ravine West of the main climbing route after the recent storm cycle that had left over one foot of new snow. The snow was soft and pretty dense, allowing for easy uphill travel. Early in the morning we did not see any signs of instability along the route. Around 10:30-11am we got a period of significant solar exposure that warmed up the snowpack and caused snow and ice to melt and fell off cornices, triggering small D1 avalanches. We saw some signs of cracking as we travelled but the snowpack remained stable. As the day progressed we stopped noticing signs of instability, and the new snow seemed to have bound with the previous layer. We did not trigger any avalanches while travelling downhill and overall we did not see any specific cause for concern at that point. Generally we travelled quite cautiously once we started seeing the initial signs of instability of cut through to the main climbing route as soon as we were able to.
Avalanche
Early in the morning we saw some D2 natural avalanches and a cornice collapse in very steep terrain, likely to have happened overnight. As the snow warmed up we saw some small (D1-1.5) spontaneous wet loose avalanches as the snow shifted and blocks of snow and ice fell from cornices along the gully West of the main climbing route. Nobody was caught in these avalanches. A skier travelling downhill told us that he had triggered a D1 avalanche without further consequences.