Observations of Natural Avalanche Cycle

Quick report

Weather

sunny, windy, cloudy

Ride Type

sunnySlopes, alpineSlopes, mellowSlopes

Stayed Away

steepSlopes, convexSlopes

Riding Quality

ok

Snow Conditions

crusty, powder, windAffected, wet

Avalanche Conditions

avalancheConditionTemp

Excellent turns on spearhead glacier with 15cm of dry snow on top of a supportive crust. Continued laps down the glacier towards the lake on N aspects with good skiing but increasing wind affect. From spearhead shoulder we could see the Trorey E face and N face slides. Could not get good pics from our distance. We continued to Phalanx N bowl. The entire lower pitch slid in the last cycle with >1m crowns connecting across the bowl. There were large cornice chunks scattered throughout the eastern portion of the start zone. Notably, strong E winds reloaded the start zone with fresh windslab in places. The deep crowns continued pretty much on every N avalanche slope above the exit bench (1800-2000m), and we observed some massive debris flows on our way out. N aspects above 1800m had a ~5cm supportive crust below recent storm snow. The snow beneath this crust remained quite moist from the warm up. W aspects on our exit were spring slush (no crust).