Motel 66 Couloir

We skied the Motel 66 Couloir on Joffre’s NE shoulder at approximately 1:00PM on Saturday. Snow conditions were awful below 1500m but rapidly improved above that, with 15-20cm of fresh powder on top of the January crust. We didn’t note any signs of instability ascending above Keith’s Hut to Motel 66, even during some fairly serious side-hilling. The cornice overhung the couloir by a couple of metres to skier’s left but was minimal to skier’s right. The couloir didn’t appear to be particularly wind loaded but we opted to perform a ski cut to test the stability. Satisfied with the conditions, the four of us dropped in one by one had some great powder turns. The ski out through the trees was a little less heinous than expected!