Quick report
We toured into South Cottonwood Creek drainage yesterday in hopes to ski the north couloir on Alex Lowe Peak. The approach to Blackmore Lake was truly atrocious and consisted of mostly water ice and skinning over prolonged patches of dirt.. quite the dismal sight in mid-January! Snow coverage on the trail improved dramatically once past the lake. We approached the day with cautious optimism, noting steady winds out of the western half of the compass at upper elevations. Our plan was to bootpack up the couloir since we were skeptical of wind-affected snow and skiing it blindly from the top.
Snow depth at the bottom of the couloir ranged from 170-180cm. We made it roughly a quarter of the way up the couloir and decided to bail as wind slabs increased in thickness from 1 inch to roughly 4-5 inches. Snow depths decreased to roughly 80-90cm where we stopped. Our ECT at the bottom of the couloir yielded no results, but we dug several hand pits on the way up that produced clean shears on a thin layer of near-surface facets. It seems like we could've continued safely, but the fact that we were discussing all this on the way up was enough cause for a bail.
We had a great rest of the day and skied the east face of Alex Lowe, which was far less-impacted by winds. Winds really began to crank up skinning back into the Blackmore basin (video below).