Hourglass

Quick exploratory hit up the NE shoulder of Cheops to ski Hourglass. Only a few cms on the skin track up but we found a good amount of untracked snow (at least not recently) where we dropped in. Still a little lumpy and tricky lower down where the path narrows. We had great views across the valley and highway with only very light cloud/fog hanging around, until around 11 when it got more cloudy and grey. No wind or wind effect noted, snow was generally light and fluffy up and down.

Dug an amateur's pit and tried my hand at a compression test (so take it with a grain of salt). Wasn't overly concerned about the route choice given the forecast, but thought it would be a good exercise nonetheless. Info & results: Opening in the trees, may very well have been tree bombed and/or skied in the past N aspect, 1850 m, ~35° slope 180 cm snow depth CTH 27 - resistant planar failure down 40 cm No obvious weak layer (i.e., not an obvious/thick crust or big surface hoar layer), so maybe just a density change in the previous week's storm snow?