LLSA

Sz 3 Sa in Hidden Bowl. Slide was trigger on a NE facing aspect by the last skier. Tracks enter skier right (see photo).

Good Skiing conditions. No whumpfing or shooting cracks. Snow pack got really shallow around the summit with some exposed rocks, but was good everywhere else.

Explored the Helena Ramp, needed some exercise closeish to home. Let's see, long slog in through facet's, sun crust, frozen tracks... so many frozen tracks, icy uptracks, thin snowpack, break through facets? (best part of the ski down), hidden rocks and scree, luge track out. XX'ing out this page in the guide book till my memory erases from my consciousness. I should know better sorry team. Oh yes, no signs of any instability in adjacent slopes.

Thought we would take a look, and see how chokestone was coming along. Day was way colder than originally forcasted, -22° in the parking lot. Warmed up as the morning progressed, maybe hit -7° in the sun. Then a sudden shift back down to -25° by tower lake. Heard the first whumpf at the base of Eisenhower when I stepped off the uptrack on a flat. 2nd one happened as the made our way to the foot of the bluff between the two lakes. Found a sheltered south facing slope, around 22-25°. And stepped off the uptrack to see if anything would move. Immediate collapse of the surrounding slope, remote triggered the one rock roll feature 40ft away from us. Looked like 2 of the layers were reactive. Decided to call it a day at that point, didn't need to see chokestone that badly. All in all, a beautiful day to take the skis for a walk

Spent Wed Feb 15 - Fri Feb 17th at Skoki Lodge. /// Feb 15 was cold, sunny and generally calm. At Boulder and Deception Passes, winds have blown away much of the snow and areas adjacent to the trail have exposed rock and ground. However, ski and sled traffic (as well as trail packing) has hardened and preserved the snow on the route itself, so no issues were encountered and we were able to keep skis on the entire time. We observed a few 48+ hour old natural avalanches (see photos) en route to the lodge. /// On Feb 16 we skied some conservative low-angled lines south of Skoki. The day was cold, with increasing cloud and winds, and snow beginning in the evening. Coverage was generally acceptable, with powder found on sheltered North facing slopes. Trail breaking was a mixed bag - ski pen was +/- 5 to 10cm and with the occasional step, members of our party would sink knee-deep into facets. Foot pen was in the range of 60-100cm through facets. /// We skied out on Feb 17 and enjoyed some low-angled turns on a ramp immediately to skier's right of Deception Pass, where the snow had been sheltered enough from the wind to be preserved. The day was mostly sunny. A fierce head wind was encountered from the top of Deception Pass and across Ptarmigan Lake, but this died down once we descended from Boulder Pass. We had a wonderful time despite the less-than-spectacular snowpack and are already daydreaming of a return trip. /// Included numerous photos of the Skoki trail and surrounding area for beta.

We stuck to mellow slopes and would often sink into the snowpack while skiing. We dug a pit, the compression test results were CTM - 11 - SC (down in the facets). Lots of facets and pretty rotten snow.

While doing AST 1 course we had one whumpf while skiing down. Stuck to very mellow terrain. Had sudden collapse, and no results from compression tests. Snow quality was unsupportive due to deep facets