Talking Mountain

Impressively cold blower pow for early April in the Echo Lakes area today. New snow was uncohesive along the entire ridge route to Talking Mt. I would expect the new snow on the south-facing part of the ridge would quickly gain some slab characteristics once more sun hit it, but that hadn't occurred yet when we passed through this morning. A few sections along that south-facing side of the route were challenging to skin due to "dust on crust" conditions. Cornices were very large in the bowl just east of Talking Mt, and some cornice chunks had fallen recently. Smaller cornices and wind features along the route were mostly unreactive or produced small sluffs directly beneath my skis. New snow totals were around 15cms, but leeward areas had a bit more. The fresh snow was resting on a mostly firm crust. Lower-angle terrain skied a bit better due to reduced scratching on the crust below. While descending Talking, we all triggered dry loose slides in the mid-slope steep section. We didn't observe any other signs of instability.