Herdman-Banana Link Up

Found the Herdman Couloir blown in and in beauty shape today. Anywhere from 15 to 30 cms on top of a crust you couldn't feel while skiing. Small wind skins in places, but manageable. The middle of the approach required ski crampons. Bootpacking/cramponing the couloir was deep, the crust isn't strong enough to stop boot penetration. The storm/wind snow hadn't consolidated yet, but there was something about 20 cms deep under the crust (sun/temperature/stellar interface, I would guess) that was quite stubborn and resistant. The mid-pack felt rock solid, and the skiing the surface snow was amazing. Moved over to Banana Couloir and found the storm/wind snow turning into more of a consolidated skin/small slab over there, anywhere from 10 to 25 cms, and approaching threshold in certain pockets. It skied really well also, but not as deep or creamy as the Herdman. By the time we came down the wind had done its wicked work and mid-Crossover Path to the bottom was undulating waves of styrofoam. Best guess is the wind will have loaded or stiffened the two couloirs back up tomorrow, with possible slabs, though we cleaned the Banana out pretty good. Only the bottom 100 metres of the Crossover Path had warmed up by the end of the day, was well wintery up there.