Nicci's Notch - Chromosome

Busy day at the pass but we managed to stay away from the crowds by leaving early and then going for a not so popular objective. We had the Shelf or STS in mind but strong winds from the SW, cold temperatures and reduced visibility at 2250m on the west shoulder of Cheops convinced us to drop down in Nicci's Notch. Moderate wind transport had completely filled any old tracks and it skied amazing to the choke, not so good on a thinly covered older bed surface in the middle and good again through some mostly soft debris at the bottom. We then skinned up towards the Cone and found 15-20cm of unconsolidated snow over a 5cm supportive temperature crust on the moraines. The wind then shifted more to the NW and multiple SZ 1 sloughs were observed coming off cliffy terrain on Cheops. The sneak in traverse to gain the Chromosome Couloir was very sporty with the unconsolidated snow easily washing downhill on the supportive crust while sidehilling in steep terrain. A 15-20cm deep by 10m wide (SZ 1) 1F windslab was controlled with a ski cut at the entrance of the Chromosome Couloir but stopped before reaching the guts of the couloir. The middle of the couloir was filled with a 30-40cm thick slough slab for the first 100m, which cracked (5m long crack) in a couple places but did not go because of the supported nature of the terrain. The soft old debris skied good lower down while either side of the debris skied very well in boot top powder to valley bottom. A great day overall!

One SZ 1 windslab controlled with a ski cut at the entrance of the Chromosome Couloir. Also observed multiple SZ 1 sloughs coming off the NW facing cliffs of Cheops. Nothing bigger as the cliffs had shedded most HST during the Dec 7-8 warm storm.

Wind originally calm at first light, picked up to strong from the SW at 2250m mid-morning and shifted to the NW by noon.