Longworth Worth It

Spent December 31 - January 3 at Longworth Lookout (shoutout to PGBRS for such an amazing hut!!!). Started the climb up to the hut in the rain, but transitioned to snow at 1300m. Lots of wind and fresh snow over our stay. Started out on the 1st with good visibility and more committing terrain choices, but as the storm rolled in we scaled back our terrain choices and as such didn’t see much in the way of natural or skier triggered avalanches. Had steady wind at ridge tops but generally well protected in the trees. We picked up 25cm of snow between the 1st and the 2nd, felt right side up for us but we kept it quite conservative terrain choice wise. It snowed steadily through out the day with increasing winds and by the end of the day we were seeing touchy size 1 storm slabs and wind slabs in isolated terrain, but they were gaining size and distribution. By the end of the day we had 45cm of new snow for the trip. We left early on the 3rd to get ahead of the storm and had another 10cm on the ground with obvious wind effect from the night. Storm snow was slabbing up on us while skiing back to the car, but in the trees and broken terrain we didn’t have anything propagate and move on us. Storm was increasing in intensity as the day progressed and by the time we got back to the car, there was 40cm of snow on the car at valley bottom.