Quick report
No cracking or signs of propagation were observed. Multiple hand shears in Duchess produced stubborn planar failures on the ice crust. We decided to continue climbing it and ski it given the lack of propagation potential observed and the general trend of stabilizing snowpack over the past few days. Turns were fun.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 28
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- light
Snowpack
Snowpack was widely variable between different gullies along the boot spur ridge. Stovepipe was largely wind-scoured down to an ice crust which made the skiing quite undesirable. The top of climber's left variation of Hillman's consisted of ice crust leading into windslab which had the appearance of sastrugi but was actually quite soft (4F). We travelled conservatively down this upper portion, avoiding wind-loaded areas and convexities and sticking to the more concave sides of the gully. Lower in the gully down to the top of the Christmas tree, snow felt right-side up and made for fun turns. In Duchess, we found homogenous, widely connected 4F windslab varying in depth from 15-45cm + on top of an ice crust which was boot supportable in some places and not in others.