Base of Hilda Peak

Riding quality was:

Terrible

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Hard
• Heavy
• Wind affected

We rode:

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

We stayed away from:

• Convex slopes
• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Cold
• Stormy
• Windy

Avalanche conditions

• Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.

Thought we would pay Hilda Peak a visit on Sunday amid some pretty gusty winds. Tree line above hostel was mostly slabbed up and provided many shooting cracks and zero ski penetration in some areas. Other areas were deep deposits of sweet powder. Dug a pit under lower ridge to have a peak (see attached), 5th hand tap resulted in planar failure down 45cm on isolated column. Below this failure was facets all the way to a very, very hard crust 10cm-15cm off ground. Total SP was 80cm below ridge crest with the middle pack being mostly rotting garbage.

Above ridge was extremely windblown, hard packed, ice covered and barely worth riding, we turned around 3/4 of the way up due to minimal coverage and high relentless winds.

Counted 4-5 Size 1-2 Point release loose avalanches on sunny SW slopes across valley. Each Slide initiated below rocks with midday warming. ~TW