Fortitude Ridge Point 2146 East Face

<p>7cm overnight at Fidelity. The Illecillewaet River crossing is not in so bring your waders. Rain crust under 10cm of new snow until 1150m, especially hard under dense trees but we didn't use ski crampons even though we had them with us. It was really easy finding a good crossing over Flat Creek on a large snow covered tree. We skinned up the mostly really nice northeast shoulder just above the meeting of Flat Creek and the Illecillewaet until reaching the ridge near 1800m. We then followed it until our high point at 2146m, hence the name. Strong west wind above 2000m with moderate wind transport had formed small fragile cornices with easy to trigger/control 5-10cm thick soft slabs in the immediate lee. Old windslabs could be felt under the new snow for the first 100m and then the skiing got better and better until reaching the SE facing wall of the huge gully at the bottom of the line. Great skiing! There was evidence of a SZ 3 from Wednesday's storm with a wet debris reaching across Flat Creek to the bottom of the slope on the Mount Smart side. The ski out along Flat Creek was as tedious as I have ever seen it with very few good snow bridges and a lot of back and forth between the creek and the trees. So leave plenty of time at the end of your day for the ski out if you head that way.</p>

Terrain Ridden

Convex slopes, Steep slopes, Open trees.

Terrain Avoided

Sunny slopes.

Snow Conditions

Powder.

Weather Conditions

Stormy, Windy, Cloudy.