Mount Cromwell

We were inspired to explore an East-facing chute off Mount Cromwell after spotting some ski tracks from a viewpoint on the Icefields Parkway. We had a steep skin up the looker's left side of the chute, climbing >600m of vertical w/in 2km of switchbacks. After reaching the top of the chute at just shy of 2,250m ASL, we dug a pit and did a few laps in an upper bowl. Snowpack seemed very well consolidated though quite sun affected, with occasional wet sloughs on a solar crust ~20-40cm down. Overall great day checking out a new site.

Snowpack seemed overall very well consolidated. Our pit was on an NE aspect, HS 175cm, with 20cm of fresh snow on a thin, presumably sun crust, followed by another 20cm of better consolidated snow on top of a second, thicker sun crust. This was followed by hard pack snow. The top powder compressed quite easily with compression testing. We had a sudden planar failure at a very hard CTH28.