Observations of Natural Avalanche Cycle

La qualité du hors-piste était:

OK

Les conditions de neige étaient :

• Croûtée
• Poudreuse
• Mouillée
• Affectée par le vent

Nous avons parcouru:

• Pentes alpines
• Pentes de faible inclinaison
• Pentes ensoleillées

Nous sommes restés à l'écart de:

• Pentes convexes
• Pentes raides

La journée était:

• Nuageuse
• Ensoleillée
• Venteuse

Conditions d'avalanche

• Augmentation rapide de la température jusqu'à près ou au-dessus de 0°C ou neige mouillée en surface.

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).