Hilda and Ramparts

Spent a couple of nights in Hilda Hostel and skied nearby. On Tuesday (13th) we skied off of hilda Ridge on SE facing slopes between 2350 and 2250m. Below about 2250 we found we rapidly transitioned from nice dust on crust to a much harder and less pleasant crust. On Wed (14th) we again climbed Hilda ridge but crossed North at 2400m and skied the NE facing slopes between Hilda and Boundary Lake. At the top of the bench at about 2300m the snow was shallow (<30cm), we dropped off the bench and did a pit at 2280m. At this point the snow was 98cm deep. The top 13 were powder and light wind transport, this sat on 35cm (aprox) layer cake of pretty hard slab. Then a softer slab and finally the inevitable 20cm of depth hoar. Compression test gave a 13 on the interface between the hard and soft slabs at about 50cm down, No Pop or Drop, just pulled a cm or so on an fairly irregular fashion. A couple more hits had the column working out on the Hoar layer. The slope skied well by this years standards, Dust layer varied between 12 and 20, Progressing down to 2200m the surface snow quality was much better, but the supporting slabs became pretty intermittent. Untracking had sections of knee-deep interspersed with 15cm. The last run we dropped down to 2000m (the old road), the snow lacked any really supportive layers, but was enough to keep us off the ground. The Whumping that I indicated was primarily near ridges and lateral moraines, pockets of wind slab. Did not experience it on the more open slopes but it was enough to convince us not to give the steeper higher slopes a miss. On Thursday we did a quick run up the trail on Parkers, Some good snow on fairly tracked North slopes lower down. Heading a little further east resulted in some less pleasant conditions (Dust on a crunchy crust). Wolverine tracks on the ridge heading down towards the highway.