New Year, Big Kahuna

We climbed the ridge of Fraser Peak with the intention of riding Big Kahuna if conditions were suitable. Cloud cover was about 40% above 1400 m and winds were calm to moderate from the south. 5-10 cm of storm snow on a soft MF layer from Saturday's thaw produced shooting cracks up to 1300 m as we ascended the face of Little Kahuna. This disappeared once we got above 1300 m and over the roll to ascend the east face of Fraser Peak, which was partially wind scoured but otherwise had 5 cm of soft snow from the previous 24 hours. Once we got to the top, south winds had created several small cornices along the cliffs to the skiers right of the entrance to Big Kahuna at 2100 m, which we were able to shovel pry from two meters back and drop onto the steep slope into the line. These cornice falls didn't produce any results, so a skier was put onto belay and set to ski cut/stomp the top 30 m of the line which appeared to be a wind slab from the previous several weeks of southerly winds and storm snow. This similarly produced no results. Riding the line, we found 5-20 cm of storm snow on top of a soft to firm crust from the thaw. As we crossed the lake back to the meadows, we observed sluffing from the steep cliffs above 1600 m to the south of Big Kahuna, which had not stepped down any other layers. We approached the day with a high level of commitment to turn tail if the mountains said so. Nice way to start the year.