Huntington Ravine

We skinned up to Huntington Ravine and reached it around 11:30am, the snowpack was quickly warming up but still mostly supportive on the surface. There was running water visible over the ice fall at the end of diagonal. We decided the plan would be to dig a pit and ski the fan depending on the result. We skinned higher on the right of the ravine and stopped about 100m below the icefall and a little to the right of it. Briefly after taking off the skis I went straight through the snow and discovered that it was hollowed out from under: 40cm of air with a hard layer of ice above (3-5cm thick), and 30cm of fist hard heavy wet snow above. Another group of mountaineers coming up on with the intention to climb damnation gully suffered the same problem, suggesting this was a widespread problem throughout the ravine. Ice layer appeared fragile and we assessed that it could break and cause a large slide. We decided it was enough red flags not to have to proceed with a formal pit. We transitioned and skied down, no sign of instability during the ski down, although snow was very heavy and wet.

Quick report