Connaught Creek Massacre

Riding quality was:

Good

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Heavy
• Powder
• Wet

We rode:

• Alpine slopes
• Mellow slopes
• Sunny slopes

We stayed away from:

• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Sunny
• Warm

Avalanche conditions

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

TL;DR: Connaught Creek is unrecognizable and requires a few boot packs across slide path debris. Snow is really nice above 2,200m. Video Peak, VCR and Bruins Ridge ripped through Hospital Bowl all the way to valley bottom.

We made our way up Connaught Creek with the objective of heading towards Video Peak. Travel was very slow through the valley and required us to boot pack through the avalanche debris from all three slide paths that ripped through the valley bottom and in some cases up the other side.

We followed an old skin track up Hospital Gully and made our way to Hospital Knob. Travel was made easier with 5-7cm of new snow wet on a crust.

Upon reaching Hospital Knob, we realized that Hospital Bowl had slid and noticed a crown that had propagated from Video Peak to VCR and across to Bruins Ridge all the way down to valley bottom.

Made our way up through Hospital Bowl whole trying to avoid the debris the most we could all the way to the bottom of Video Peak. We decided not to climb all the way up and skied just below video Peak. The snow was great up top and got heavy and wet as we made our way down.

The exit through Christmas Trees was made easier by the new wet snow on crust. Another two boot packs across slide path debris was necessary to exit.