Panorama Peak - Taylor Lake area

<p>5 cm of new snow at the parking lot turned to 15 cm at Taylor Lake. Skinned up the southeast slopes of Panorama Peak directly above the lake. Trailbreaking was 25-30cm deep until reaching the upper treeline where old wind affect was very firm and covered with 10-15 cm of non wind affected snow. We were considering skiing a north facing couloir but the wind started picking up with moderate to heavy wind transport in the Bell Couloir area and numerous loose dry avalanches up to SZ 2 from the cliffs looker's right of the Bell Couloir. A peek down the north side of Panorama Peak revealed old and recent debris on the fans. We changed our plan and enjoyed an excellent 500m run down one of the southeast avy paths directly down to the lake. We went back up and this time decided to drop in one of the very first north facing chutes. That one had 30-40 cm of mostly unconsolidated snow that was just starting to settle into a bit of a storm slab. Beneath the unconsolidated snow was an old and very firm (P to K hard) bed surface to which the new snow wasn't bonding. This confirmed me that the more exposed north couloirs likely wouldn't have skied very well. We went back up around the shoulder and skied another southeast facing path. Tiny less than 5 cm thick temperature slabs could be triggered on steep southeast aspect in the upper treeline in locations that had seen more wind in the last couple days. All in all, great conditions on the southeast and fun to ski those rarely skied paths!</p>

Terrain Ridden

Alpine slopes, Convex slopes, Steep slopes, Sunny slopes.

Snow Conditions

Powder.

Weather Conditions

Cold, Windy, Cloudy, Sunny.