Skied up to the Lilly Glacier today with Jordy Shepherd,
with the intent of doing the loop around to the Asulkan. High humidity, moderate
winds and snow transport from today and previous days’ storm snow has
established soft slabs of varying thickness (5 cm to 90 cm). We turned
around at the base of the glacier due to low visibility, whumphing, shooting
cracks, and we could hear avalanches running up in the alpine – stability
was deteriorating quickly. We managed to cut a sz 1.0 during the descent
above the large approach moraine; not surprising given the conditions. It
slid on the 30-40 cm down storm interface then stepped down to the Dec 25 crust,
but noteworthy was that it was able to propagate through a thin section of slab
(maybe 2-3 cm thick), then over to another small convex roll and release it as
well. Keep that in mind as you get near, some of those steeper moraine
features at treeline and above.
Stability:
Alpine: Poor
Treeline Fair
Below Treeline: Moderate
Cheers,
Kirk Mauthner
Full Asst. Guide