Ross Southeast Couloirs

<p>Went up on the SE slopes and couloirs of Ross Peak today. The Loop Brook parking lot had already close to 10 cars in it when we left around 7:20. The skin track was in great shape until the slot canyon which was as scary as I have ever seen it, scraped sidehill hardpack through most of it. We managed to keep our skis on without using our ski crampons but a slip or a fall could have ended up really badly. Someone seemed to have recently went for a swim, I hope it was on the way out... The rest of the skin track was mostly uneventful until we noticed that a party had done a hundred switchbacks up the looker's left Ross SE Couloir to access Cougar Creek West (see picture). Wow! Throughout the day, we noticed at least two other highly questionable skin tracks. One on the lookers left of Avalanche Crest that ended up traversing the whole face higher up, and another doing zig zags across the very windloaded lookers left most slidepath on the west face of Afton (see picture). Again, wow! I think it's time we get some snow and the avalanche danger rating goes up so people stop doing stupid things. Back to the Ross SE couloirs now. The looker's right couloir had a SZ 2 soft debris at the bottom and we could see that most of the unconsolidated snow had come down from about 2/3 of the way up the couloir. The sun was already hitting the guts of the upper half of the couloir but we had made good time to get to its base, the night had been very cold and there seemed to be minimal residual hazard after all that had come down during the previous couple sunny days. So we decided to transition to bootpacking and assess ski quality on the way up. Ankle deep soon turned to boot top deep and the last 1/3 of the couloir was definitely in the knee deep range. Most of the snow in the guts had been affected by sloughs from the steep solar facing right side. The hardest bed surface we found was small pockets of 1F+/P-. Not bad. We approached the mostly undisturbed upper part cautiously and did a few hasty hand shears. We obtained an easy SP result down 35cm on the Jan 10 SH. We then decided to go on the sunnier climber's right. In an undisturbed location, we got an easy SP result down 35cm over a suncrust. We then went straight below a small coulie that had sloughed recently and booted straight up that one until the angled mellowed out and we could traverse back into the guts just before topping out. We transitioned quickly and a few ski cuts across the steeper top of the couloir did not produce any result. We mostly stuck to the shaded skiers right side of the couloir which was holding 30-40cms ski penetration in many places. Very decent ski quality. We got to the bottom of the couloir with still a lot of time in our hands so we decided to go for the looker's left couloir. We avoided using the skin track that had been set straight up the guts of it and instead took one that went hard left through the trees to the edge of another wide slidepath below the huge SE facing enclosed alpine bowl. Luckily, a skin track had been set from that bowl to the entrance of Cougar Creek West by sticking just below the cliffs, i.e. the recommended approach to Cougar Creek West. Once we gained the ENE ridge at 2400m, we transitioned to skiing and dropped in the looker's left Ross SE couloir. This one held 30-40cm ski penetration most of the way except for short sections on the skiers left which had a thin suncrust and another section near the middle in which the skiers left had been affected by sloughs coming down from the steep solar rocks. All in all, we had an excellent day out there and managed to not see any other party.</p>

Weather Report

<p>Wind transport noticeable off Bonney throughout most of the day.</p>

Terrain Ridden

Alpine slopes, Convex slopes, Steep slopes, Sunny slopes.

Snow Conditions

Crusty, Powder.

Weather Conditions

Cold, Sunny.