Skied a scenic tour from Num-Ti-Jah Lodge over Helen Ridge, up Cirque Peak, and down the Cirque Glacier today.
Not much of a freeze overnight so the snow below treeline was isothermal with just a thin crust. We were breaking through the surface crust in places and the best travel was on old up tracks or down tracks. At treeline and above there was a good supportive crust with 5-10cm of fresh snow which made for easy travel and good spring skiing.
Moderate SW winds were creating a few thin wind slabs in the alpine that were reactive to ski cutting, but in general the snow pack up high was pretty solid until the crust began to break down on solar aspects by mid-day. We saw a few recent cornice failures that triggered the basal facets in the impact zones, some recent wet sluffs up to size 1.5 on solar aspects that occasionally went down to the basal facets, and a few small loose dry sluffs from the wind loading today.
Fun spring skiing up high if you don't mind a bit of work to get there.
