Hero's Area

Skied the trees on the south and north sides in the drainage up to Hero's knob. Lots of fresh snow plus facets made the uptracking tiring, and low coverage made the tree skiing tricky. Even on 125 wide skis, the weak snowpack and 30+cm of powder gave knee high ski penetration, resulting in slow going on the downhill. The new snow has not bonded well, especially on solar aspects. As soon as we went above treeline, a member of our remote triggered a size 1 avalanche and we chose to turn around. We witnessed very little evidence of sliding on the typical Heros knob approach, so all that new snow is waiting for a triggered release.