Quick report

East Peak / Cement Basin / Lake Basin

Gerrit Stoker / Amanda MazzengaWest Slopes South
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Quick report

Our group started ascending towards East peak around 8am and descending down into Cement Basin for our first run of the day. The winds were already picking back up and gusting strong earlier than we expected and there was visible snow transport happening but no signs of instability. We then worked our way across Cement and up to the notch looking into Lake Basin. After working our way up the ridge we observe a large amount of roller balls across the valley below the cliffs on Norse Peak but did not see any other signs of avalanches or instability. We then skied a NE aspect down into Lake Basin where we continued to see no signs of instability. We returned back up and out across the ridge towards East Peak where we skied back down the SE side into Cement. This had a fair amount of wind crust and wasn't quite sloppy but was getting much heavier. For our exit we skied between Solar Slab and Ted's Buttress which was impacted by the wind but there were a still good turns with dryer snow still to be found sheltered in thicker tree sections. The coverage was thin though and there were still plenty of rocks to be found. We did find smaller wind slabs throughout the day but did not find them to be reactive. Overall the snowpack seems to have settled well after the storm and we never felt uneasy or on edge while traveling today.