Alpine skiing on a windy day

La qualité du hors-piste était:

OK

Les conditions de neige étaient :

• Croûtée
• Durcie
• Poudreuse
• Affectée par le vent

Nous avons parcouru:

• Pentes alpines
• Pentes de faible inclinaison
• Pentes raides

Nous sommes restés à l'écart de:

• Pentes convexes
• Pentes ensoleillées

La journée était:

• Froide
• Ensoleillée
• Venteuse

We went out in the Pass at about 10:30am and at the time there was barely any wind. We set up to go check out some North/ NW facing slopes for our decent and travelled on a South and East facing slope to get to the start of our decent.

South/East facing slopes - sunny slope:

The wind picked up around noon and higher up in the alpine, the snow was wind affected; hard stastrugi, patches of ice covered snow, patches of releasable wind slabs on steeper slopes (propagation longer than my skis, but low consequence as the section was maybe 2-3m high)...Part of our group didn't have ski crampons and just picked their way carefully. The sun was warm, but the wind was very cold. Definitely frost bite type of conditions. The attached photo shows a bit of the type of snow we found on our way up - my soul was too crushed to take shots of the North facing slopes, the wind got the best of me.

North/North West facing slopes:

Our first decent on a steeper North/NW facing slope was less than ideal. It was however skiable with a 10cm of softer snow layer on a harder crust and patches of hard crust here and there. Generally speaking we were where skiing were to be had for the day. The better snow was definitely lower down on mellower slopes with patches of powder to give you the "woohoo" you were waiting to get out all day.

Consensus was: not a place to bring a beginner, difficult conditions to ski.