Bow Hut - January 16-18th
Vulture Peak, Mount Gordon, Mount Olive, Mount Thompson (bring rock skis), The Onion
There are variable amounts of snow over the glaciers. We encountered exposed ice west of St. Nicholas and probed snow depths up to 170cm. On average, glacier coverage is around 120cm.
There was 5-20cm of low density snow on the glaciers that skied excellent. I would imagine that most of that is being blown around by the strong winds from today producing wind affected surfaces. Still lots of exposed and just hidden rocks off the glacier that required careful navigation. We roped up on glaciers and predominantly skied on low angle terrain.
In the instances where we ventured into slightly steeper terrain (eg. short section next to the wind scoup on Gordon), we encountered a slippery 3 cm crust that was supportive to skis but not to boots. We approached these terrain features cautiously and was very mindful of the current avalanche problems and snowpack.
On the descent back to the parking lot, our skis were wallowing outside of the skin track.