Video Hospital area

Quick report

Weather

windy, cloudy, sunny

Ride Type

openTrees, alpineSlopes, mellowSlopes, steepSlopes

Stayed Away

steepSlopes, convexSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

powder

10-15 cm ski pen in Hospital Bowl with non-wind affected powder over supportive windslabs. Dug at 2400m on an east aspect on the approach to Video Peak and got easy sudden planar results down 70 cm on the Feb 14 weak layer and very easy (broke on column isolation) sudden collapse down 130 cm on a 3cm thick facet layer (picture). The approach gully to the ridge had slid recently (Monday ?) but a definite drop could be felt 70cm down while probing with poles on the non-avalanche affected slope climber's left of it. I enjoyed great skiing from 2430m down the mellow bowl and Hospital Gully 1 while two people pushed the uptrack towards the ridge and the summit as they didn't seem too concerned by my findings. I went back up Hospital Bowl and watched the two people traversing into the face from 25m below the summit and skiing down the face along a skier's right trending diagonal (picture). They did not trigger the slope. I made it to my previous turnaround point (2430m) and again skied down from there but went down Hospital Gully 2 for this second run. Excellent ankle deep powder turns in the alpine and boot top deep below treeline. Fast skiing. :)