French-Haig-Robertson

Skied the French-Haig-Robertson traverse in nice sunny weather. We started the day with low expectations for coverage on the glaciers and an assessment mindset and were pleasantly surprised by the conditions. Looked like no one had been there before us since the last storm, we broke trail the whole way once above treeline, finding 10-25cm of new unconsolidated soft snow on top of old supportive crusts or wind affect. Average snow depth on the glacier was ~150-200cm on the French and ~280cm on the Haig, though we stayed only on the North side of the glacier following the direct route to the Robertson. On the Robertson, we stuck to the far East side of the glacier where coverage was ~280cm on the upper steep pitch. We let great skiing pull us further skiers left than intended and found snow depth much thinner there. Promptly traversed back out to the right side where coverage was much better. Ski quality was excellent on the Robertson with 30cm of unconsolidated powder showing no signs of wind effect or slabbing. We observed 3 avalanches in motion and tons of debris from the last cycle. Two loose avalanches out of steep solar terrain during peak solar warming around 1400hrs on the headwall south of the Robertson-Douglas Col. One natural sz 1 starting from steep rocky terrain (see pictures), and a loose sz 1 running 50m on the Mar 2 crust initiated by skier while skinning up the headwall. The last avalanche we saw was a surprisingly large natural sz 2 on the East side of Whistling Rock peak that ran all the way to valley bottom with the powder cloud, and possibly debris covering the ski track around 1630hrs. We suspect cornice triggered windslab that stepped down to PWL in the open slopes below. We also noticed multiple sz 2 crownlines and debris deposits on the east face of Mt Burstall, some stepping down to ground (see pictures), as well as countless old loose avalanches out of steep cliffs. Overall, a great day out with surprisingly good skiing. Though we wished we had started earlier to avoid exposing ourselves to the headwall during the heat of the day.