HSCT: Cypress to Lions Bay

<p>Completed HSCT from Cypress to Lions Bay. Heard large settlements while traversing between St. Mark's to base of Mt. Unnecessary, as well as shooting cracks. Multiple hand shears produced easy planar results down 30-50cm, depending on the amount of storm snow. Saw signs of natural slab avalanches down ~ 20cm, starting from mostly north facing, rocky, steep slopes. In the photo attached of our line down the col by the West Lion, you can see signs of a slab avalanche that looked to be from Friday or Thursday in the foreground of the photo. Snow was heavy but fun shmoo, and we elected to ski down keeping the ridge, instead of dropping into the gully down to Lions Bay. Around 900m we took our skis off due to treacherous conditions, and bootpacked to the Harvey Creek crossing, where we could put skis back on and ski out the logging road until ~ 600m.</p>

Terrain Ridden

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

Terrain Avoided

Convex slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

Rapid temperature rise to near zero degrees or wet surface snow.

Slab avalanches today or yesterday.

Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.

Snow Conditions

Heavy, Powder.

Weather Conditions

Warm, Sunny.