Quick report
Tour tracklog and pics posted at: https://www.strava.com/activities/11196590910 No stability concerns. So just beta for skiing: 1. Overnight freeze was far harder than anticipated, and quite the contrast with the soft conditions the prior day. 2. Can start skinning almost immediately from the Cog bridge, and continuously so (even if occasionally on non-snow surfaces). Despite the hard freeze down low, up above Jacob’s Ladder must have benefitted from the recent light snowfall, as I didn’t bother with ski crampons all the way to my high point of 5,425’ without even being slightly sketched out. 3. Talked with a party of three who had originally planned on Airplane Gully but bailed because of frozen conditions. They reported continuous skinning up above the scoured section at 5,425’ with what seemed like a glimpse of mainly continuous snow up above that along the Cog. 4. Skiing was continuous from my high point of 5,425’ (the usual scoured location with a bit more pitch than the terrain immediately above and below) with the exception of one short (and absolutely mandatory) downhike on the utility line, all the way down to within 45’ vertical feet of the Cog bridge (albeit with a short grass ski, some diversions in the woods, and the usual adventure skiing). However, more portages/downhiking could be required even by this afternoon. 5. The gut of Burt looked like it had some good lines, but getting into those could be difficult (at best). Some tempting lines angling in from the Cog, but we were far too early in the day for that. 6. Although the Cog seemed hopelessly frozen when we were skinning up it at ~10am, softened delightfully by the time we were skiing around noon. 7. Looking up at Ammo from a distance, upper snowfields seemed solid near the Lake hut but far more pitchy further to looker’s left (i.e., probably don’t want to try an on-skis traverse from Lakes hut to the Cog).