High School Couloir

Banff Yoho Kootenay

martingarneau , Saturday 6th April, 2024 1:20PM

Our initial plan was to ski Kindergarten Couloir, but a party was just in front of us. We decided to go to plan B and explore High School Couloir. The approach was definitely crusty at -4 around 7am and on South aspect. Once we got closer to the couloir, we did realize that it did avalanche in the past days. The cornices above and lookers left seem to have come down or simply didn't form. The skinning got progressively more and more terrible. Around the fan, we decided to switch to bootpacking. This was terrible. We could barely get our ice axes through the crust (ice). We decided to turn down at this point. This lead to even more terrible skiing. Around 11, on our way back, the snow did turn to snowball prime quality and was around 0c. Definitely a good sign that we are in spring time. Overall, good day with friends, but horrible skiing conditions.

Source: Avalanche Canada MIN

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