Mt Macpherson / the womb

Riding quality was:

Terrible

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Hard
• Wind affected

The day was:

• Windy

Forecast is looking dry, an epic mission if you are looking for some punishment.

Travel up to ~1100 m was efficient on an unbreakable crust - ski crampons were required. Large volumes of avalanche debris were present in all fingers. While bootpacking the upper fingers, boot penetration was generally good, though boot crampons would have been helpful on the slide paths. The skin to the summit was straightforward, with ski crampons helpful for the final ~200 m vert.

In the alpine, a breakable rain crust sat over ~10 cm of light, unconsolidated snow. Lower snowpack felt well consolidated, with minimal stability concerns. Earlier in the day, the SE face of Macpherson may have offered reasonable skiing, however the crust had refrozen by the time of decent (~2:30).

The ski out was an epic, requiring jump turns from summit to car park over avalanche debris and breakable rain crust. We boot packed down ~ 100 m of the Womb at the lower choke due to unskiable avalanche debris. Creeks were also open.