Big Kahuna: better than expected day, not the best skiing

La qualité du hors-piste était:

OK

Les conditions de neige étaient :

• Croûtée
• Affectée par le vent

Nous avons parcouru:

• Pentes alpines
• Pentes raides

La journée était:

• Nuageuse

Ascended the line from below.

Calm winds until ridge top. Winds shifting from south to north east during mid day.

Mostly high and light overcast skis until 1:30pm.

Some holes in the clouds where the sun poked through. When it did it was immediately melting snow from our top sheets, small pinwheels observed releasing from high up.

Wind crust was common, down low the crust was 1-2 cm thick and higher up the crust was 4-5 cm thick.

We transitioned to ski crampons about 1/3 of the way up and that improved our travel.

Faceted under crust, didn’t feel hollow and was breaking at our feet with little energy.

Highly variable between pencil hard and 10-15 cm of soft snow.

Soft snow was NOT bonding to any layers below.

Feet of facets below the crust at the summit.

Some challenging skiing and riding with any loose snow breaking free and quick changes to hard patches.

Great to be out and was pleasantly surprised by the decent light until 1:30 pm.

Any soft snow was poorly bonded to layers below.