Costco couloir

Quick report

Weather

cold

Ride Type

alpineSlopes, steepSlopes, openTrees, denseTrees, mellowSlopes

Riding Quality

ok

Snow Conditions

powder, hard, crusty

A couple lessons learned on mount Frosty. One of which is to avoid Costco pizza for lunch. We started early with the intention of boot packing for the better part of the day. A thick icy crust layed below 1700 m making both skiing and hiking below treeline quite dangerous (boot and/or ski crampons recommended, only one member in our party had them) The snow quality above ~1700 vastly improved, with about 20-30 cm sitting on top of a breakable crust. Standing at the base of the Mount Frosty's east face, two members of our party decided to summit the east ridge. The bootpack was up a narrow chimney in a rocky section of the bowl, which surprisingly held very nice snow. We decided to ski this chute as opposed to summiting. The entrance was a little dicey as it was quite wind affected. With an involved ski and boot pack out, we made it back to the car just after sunset resulting in a very long and exhausting day.