Pattison NW Face

Riding quality was:

Amazing

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Deep powder
• Hard
• Powder
• Wind affected

We rode:

• Alpine slopes
• Mellow slopes
• Steep slopes
• Sunny slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Cold
• Sunny
• Warm

Avalanche conditions

• Slab avalanches today or yesterday.
• Rapid temperature rise to near or above 0°C or wet surface snow.

Skied the NW face - apologies for the bootpacking mess on the summit. We had no tracks to follow and checked out three possible entrances, opting for far lookers right - downclimbed into position after a belayed recon. I'm sure local badasses just ski off the top into this line but the idea made me throw up a little.

First couple turns = supportive crust and sugary snow, then windpressed/scoured, then great powder over a crust in parts. No surprise wind pockets - it was all sluff management. Shoutout to the dudes that put in an uptrack/bootpack to the north facing line on the open face far lookers left - we gladly followed after the NW face. Similar snow conditions to the NW face.

We experienced rapid warming on south slopes on the approach - cloud cover from 2pm onwards preserved a lot of the unconsolidated snow we found in the area. Very happy those skiers on Trorey were ok - we saw the slide from Pattison and it propagated wide.