Couloir North of Chester Lake

Temps along the Smith-Dorian hovered between -3 to +2 degrees from start to finish respectively. Made it to the top of our line at 12:30pm, wind and clouds were picking up, along with light flurries, -8ish at the ridge line. Snow above Chester lake was highly variable, powder, solar crust, wind crust, sastrugi, and even graupel. The fresh dry storm snow intercepted was fairly well bonded to the sliding layers some 10-15cm down. Quick pits and hand shear tests were done throughout the ascent, very limited occurrences of suspicious failures were noted, typically happening on fresh wind slabs some 5cm thick. Sluff was easily managed, as it was not travelling far on the slope angle ridden. Great day out into a sheltered line I don’t think gets much attention. Have fun and be safe everyone, lots of spring snow and fun to be had as things keep cool this week.