Stanley Headwall

Took this after most of it had run this morning, had to pull over. Slide started on the lee slopes above the upper tier on the Stanley Headwall, then entrained some more snow on the halfway ledge/slope. Not snowing at the time. I think this came down somewhere around Man Yoga, maybe a bit more left toward Nemesis. No obvious wind transport on the drive this morning. Yesterday we backed off a route to the west of the Stanley because the winds up high increased to moderate or more, and it was snowing S1. Nothing moved the rest of the day that we saw, and we wondered if we were being conservative. Today I saw this and thought, "Well, glad we bailed yesterday." This is winter alpine climbing, sometimes you get a sign you made the right/wrong decision, sometimes not, but I really dislike wind and snow for alpine climbing. Very had to predict why this happened at 08:45 and not some other time...

Natural slide from the lee zones above the upper tier of Stanley Headwall, entraining more snow on the bench roughly between Man Yoga and Nemesis. Saw it from the road so kinda hard to pinpoint location/size, but big enough to cause some issues if you were climbing there. Fortunately no one was, empty parking lot. The initial slide and cloud were quite a bit larger than the photo, it definitely added mass on the big ledge/slope above the Stanley climbs. I was working with another guide today who had their packs and other gear pushed down the slope when a slide hit at the base of Man Yoga. Fortunately they were tight against the wall and only gear was lost, with one of them getting bumped down the slope a few meters. Given that this happened today before the new snow, well, ice climbing snow conditions may be heads up out there for a bit.