White Queen - lower

Riding quality was:

Good

Snow conditions were:

• Heavy

We rode:

• Mellow slopes
• Open trees
• Sunny slopes

We stayed away from:

• Convex slopes

The day was:

• Sunny
• Warm

Avalanche conditions

• Rapid temperature rise to near or above 0°C or wet surface snow.

We skied the southwest aspect of White Queen around 9-12am. We had significant warming, and noticed sunny slopes had obvious small pinwheels and natural small slides on cliffs while in the hummingbird pass valley. We did not end up summitting due to steeper terrain placing us in direct sun. We did not dig a pit, but there seems to be about 30cm of snow in the past week that is sitting on the old hoar layer. The skiing itself was great - just heavy due to warmth.

We did have a skier-triggered crack & slide while skinning up. This was at a steep, shady slope. Approx 30cm snow slab, 5m wide, and 20m until zone deposition ended. We abandoned this route, and instead took a longer mellow route up.