Top Hat

Beautiful day on Top Hat traverse. Ski crampons are handy to have on the trail in the trees up to about 1800m. We also did a short boot pack on refrozen avy debris within 20min of Hamilton lake due to firm snow and a steep section of trail. Snow on the upper north facing pitch was excellent dry powder, about 30cm below which a supportive slab starts, as described in the forecast. We stayed away from convex features and broke up the run into sections of supported terrain. Lots of evidence of large natural avalanches on east facing terrain, steep cliffs and even far skiers right coming off the col. Challenging skiing on frozen avy debris starting around 2100m and on the traverse right above the choke, as well as a section exiting onto the flats. But interspersed with fun corn snow too! Creek exit was mostly cruisy on firm crust, but sections of the creek have been affected by slides to ground.