OH BRUGGER!

bengodwin123 , Monday 3rd April, 2023 12:10PM

We attempted to ski the Bruggers gully on Sunday April 2. We found plenty of fresh snow in the alpine that seemed to be settling pretty well. On north aspects there are lots of layers! In compression tests we found 2 separate interfaces on the new snow down 10 and 20 cm (approx) that failed on moderate taps. More concerning was a third layer down approx 50 cm that failed on hard taps. The crusts are slow to heal on the shaded north faces! We had ECTN on both surface layers with hard taps and could not get the lower layer to pop at all. Based on the ECT results we decided to climb on. Boot packing was incredibly punishing in the deep snow and we wallowed upwards, as we neared the choke the couloir started to sluff frequently and we opted to turn around. We also noted some snow falling as graupel. The snow was stellar but good sluff management was required. There is still cold fluffy snow out there! Go get it!