Tent ridge - surprise powder in treeline - suspect alpine

Riding quality was:

Amazing

Snow conditions were:

• Deep powder
• Hard
• Powder
• Wind affected

We rode:

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

We stayed away from:

• Alpine slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Stormy
• Windy

Avalanche conditions

• 30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.

A big dump of snow appears to have hit tent ridge. There was an amazing sweet spot in the treeline where wind deposited snow ranged from boot top to knee deep.

There is a very hard supportive crust underlying all the new snow. Ski crampons were essentially mandatory in the alpine.

There was VERY suspect snow in the alpine. It was wind ripped slab sitting on top of the hard crust. There was good evidence to show that the new snow was NOT bonding well to the crust and was sloughing off in big cohesive slabs. For this reason we did not ascend to the ridge top (we were ascending the north west slopes). There was also large cornices on the west facing ridge line.

The ridge was very achievable in the other direction (from the south) without too much exposure to these wind slabs.

For that reason we decided to run laps in the treeline and below.