Teddy Bear Trees

During our ascent, as we reached the ridgeline in the Teddy Bear Trees, we began noticing snow settling underfoot and wind-affected snow caused by loading over the ridge. While navigating several small convex features in the trees, we triggered a size 1 slide on the uptrack. It propagated about 20 feet and released 30–40 cm down to a layer of surface hoar. At that point, we decided to turn around and descended through the trees directly to the gully. Roughly 100 feet below the ridgeline, snow stability significantly improved, and the quality of the powder was excellent.