Quick report
Went out to Broken Top… had to get some solitude and make some turns for Strat. Such a loss… my soul aches. 💔 Conditions were… not the greatest. Headed out towards the main crater area. I was hoping it only rained to like 7.5k and above that it would still be soft snow… nope. It was pretty much frozen up solid. Toured to the apron of Pucker, there was a pretty big debris pile from slab that probably happened during the storm (see pics). The traverse skin route up to the ridge looked like a horrible frozen slide for life situation, and I forgot both boot and ski crampons, so bailed and decided to wrap around to the No Name side to see if it was any better. Over by A La Mode it almost sounded like a creek flowing, I finally figured out it was all the rime ice on the cliff starting to melt in the sun (see video). There were tiny balls of ice littering the apron. Something to keep in mind tomorrow with the warmer temps. Over on the other side skinning up Smiley it seemed like it might be slightly better. I saw a fresh booter in the ramp, so started heading up that way… then proceeded to watch a guy SKI BASE OFF THE CLIFF 😱 and float down to No Name with his chute. Crazy!! So I guess conditions are decent for that… 🤣 There was a sometimes-breakable crust pretty much everywhere. If you didn’t break through it was actually OK turns. The top 50 feet or so of the ramp it was pretty nasty. The guy who jumped the cliff had mentioned this when I saw him after the jump, and he had completely stomped the crust down just to make his in-run. Dropping into the ramp the crust actually caught my board and took a short tumble. Below that it was actually fairly good riding, even found some pow here and there, and left an actual track. There was also a crown over in the No Name cirque, with pretty big debris on the lake (see pics). Much love to Strat’s family and friends, he was one of a kind…