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