Morning on the Fingers

La qualité du hors-piste était:

Excellente

Les conditions de neige étaient :

• Croûtée
• Poudreuse

Nous avons parcouru:

• Forêt dégagée

Nous sommes restés à l'écart de:

• Pentes raides

La journée était:

• Brumeuse

Conditions d'avalanche

• 30 cm + de neige fraîche ou transport important de neige par le vent ou pluie au cours des dernières 48 heures

We got up for an early tour of the Fingers this morning. Coming out of the forest, we encountered the debris from a pretty big avalanche (size 2.5-3). There was about 20cm of fresh snow sitting on top, making me think it came down before the storm Wednesday night.

We followed an existing skin track up climber's left. The snowpack consisted of about 30cm of fresh snow sitting on a pretty rough crust. We continued beyond the end of the skin track at ~1,300m, hoping to make it a little higher. While my friend broke trail, I dug two hasty pits down to the crust. The first pit slid with a slight pull on the block, and the second slid once I isolated the block. With that, we decided to transition and head down before it got any steeper.

The skiing was great, with enough snow to keep us above the crust. We didn't experience any signs of instability on the way down, but we played it carefully just in case.