Parkhurst overnighter

Riding quality was:

OK

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Heavy
• Powder
• Wet
• Wind affected

We rode:

• Alpine slopes
• Dense trees
• Mellow slopes
• Open trees
• Sunny slopes

We stayed away from:

• Convex slopes
• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Cold
• Stormy
• Sunny
• Warm
• Windy

Avalanche conditions

• 30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.
• Rapid temperature rise to near or above 0°C or wet surface snow.

- Saturday: sunny (until later afternoon) and warm above 0C well into the night. Sunny S-SE-SW slopes had lots of point releases and snow was moist and heavy by noon. On the uptrack to Wedgemount Lk, we saw lots of evidence of warming, and picked our route carefully through the trees on the steeper more sun affected slopes. Lots of releases on the upper rockier slopes north of the uptrack. Skied to Parkhurst Saturday PM via the glacier, which appeared well filled in with a couple obvious bridges on likely larger crevasses. Parkhust SE face was very windscoured. Snow on the glacier remained cold and was pretty decent quality powder with a thin wind crust.

- Sunday: extreme SE winds kept us entertained overnight. By morning these extreme winds came with snow, so we exited early via uptrack route avoiding obvious wind deposits formed overnight. Around 10U 0512222E 5557235N in obvious chute we saw evidence of 2.5 size wet loose likely released on the Saturday during the warming. Snow was terrible through the forest and very moist on the road, raining at around 1000 m by 2PM.