Tent ridge - surprise powder in treeline - suspect alpine

AlpineLifeSnowpackReport , Monday 22nd April, 2024 10:20AM

A big dump of snow appears to have hit tent ridge. There was an amazing sweet spot in the treeline where wind deposited snow ranged from boot top to knee deep. There is a very hard supportive crust underlying all the new snow. Ski crampons were essentially mandatory in the alpine. There was VERY suspect snow in the alpine. It was wind ripped slab sitting on top of the hard crust. There was good evidence to show that the new snow was NOT bonding well to the crust and was sloughing off in big cohesive slabs. For this reason we did not ascend to the ridge top (we were ascending the north west slopes). There was also large cornices on the west facing ridge line. The ridge was very achievable in the other direction (from the south) without too much exposure to these wind slabs. For that reason we decided to run laps in the treeline and below.