Apollo Bowl Dec 10,11 & 13

<p>Spent the last 3 out 4 days skiing in Apollo Bowl on Mount Hector where we found great skiing conditions. Dec 10th spent most of the day setting a track into the bowl and up the main roadside ridge. We skied down the shorter WSW road facing gully feature to return to the road. High point of the day was about 2500m. Dec 11th used the same up track to access the roadside ridge and skied the smallest east aspect slope into the middle of the bowl from 2500m. Looped back onto the ridge and skied down to the road via the second higher gully feature. High point of the day was 2600m. Dec 13th used the same track to go up the ridge and dropped into the bowl via a ENE slope. Looped back and followed the ridge to about 2700m (some light ski mountaineering on this route) and skied the bottom half of the large Apollo slope to about 2450m, we found this slope to have a very slight wind affect "grabby" feel in the surface snow, (where as all other slopes we have skied all 3 days was powder), but it still skied great. We finished the day by skiing the lower gully feature all the way to the road. The NW bowl of Hector South Peak had slid 2.5 previous to our first day in the area. It looks like it went to ground but it had already started reloading by the time we first saw it. I assume it slid near the start of the week of snowfall. I had a hard time finding the Nov crust in the area, when I did it was very close to ground with 5-10cm of facets under. Ridge crests and horn features showed signs of wind and the snow was dense but over all it seems like the wind hasn't had a major impact on the snow (or at least the slope you'd want to ski). Most cornices are soft in the area. There are some runs with visible thick to thin issues and I would not tempt to ski these currently. Lower forest is skiing good for mid Dec, the bottom 200m has plenty of bush but when you find a laneway it's not too bad for getting back to the road.</p>

Terrain Ridden

Alpine slopes, Mellow slopes, Dense trees, Steep slopes, Sunny slopes, Open trees.

Terrain Avoided

Convex slopes.

Snow Conditions

Deep powder, Wind affected, Powder.

Weather Conditions

Cloudy, Sunny.