Lost Peak-Selkirks

Decided to swing south a few miles from my usual haunt to an old favorite, Lost Peak. My plan was to drop down to N Fork East River cross over and up the West face of Flattop and back to the sled. This is complex terrain at times so conditions need to be right. They weren't. Problem 1 was visibility, which was none, zero. Problem 2 -the southerly faces that drop into the drainage were wind hammered waves and sastrugi walls. Open West faces had the same texture. Lots of whumpfing and cracking under my skis about 5800' and higher. I decided to descend the way I came up, through the tight north facing trees. The snow was deep and skied nice, but its creepy when nearly every turn whumpfs on you and sends cracks from tree to tree. I carefully skied a couple runs in the trees with the low fog continuing all day to the point where getting lost would have been super easy. I decided to avoid that excitement, and skied out trying to avoid the "inland cornices" that were hard to see even in the trees. Summary: At least on this open peak, South facing and open west-facing had sastrugi and other fun obstacles. East- face had some sun and wind crusts and drifts. North-facing sheltered skied fine and was obviously a catch for the wind driven snow, Given the unsettled nature of the snow here, I wouldn't jump on large, connected north-facing slopes. The East and North-facing chutes will have to wait as well. Lesson of the day was, no matter how well you think you know an area, if you can't see above or around you, don't go into complicated terrain...keep it simple.

Quick report