I'd been up there the day before and conditions were really good, so the following day armed with my trusty @KenX, we went exploring some new lines, steeper and higher, and new to us, and totally untracked.
Skinning up soon presented a problem as whilst from afar the snow looked perfect, as you'll see from the video.,once on it due to the wind was not the best, as sometimes only 5cm on hardpack, maybe we should have skinned up on the fresher windblown snow (where we skied down) but then we would have been more exposed and we both thought under the rocks was the best call and initially, boot packing was the best option, unfortunately in the lee of the rocks were the equivalent of tree-wells so one moment you'd be firm underfoot and the next up to your thigh, so we soon moved away from those and carried on.
The wind was howling on the ridge and we transitioned below, in somewhat precarious terrain, though later I was somewhat disappointed as to how far off the ridge we were. I set off traversing out into the more obvious better snow and set off a mini sluff slide and had a nice line down where I stopped to then film @KenX, as he traversed out to do the same, and I must have missed the first couple of seconds as by the time I looked up there was quite an active slide going on.
Now we know what it was that created it, and it was not too severe, but enough to have taken your legs away from you if you were caught in it, I could say more but that would be giving away the reason, and it's another one for the textbook of experiences to watch out for
To be clear this is the sluff at 0.20? Was that Ken X we can see in the rocks or does he come later, seems to be a jump cut? I'd guess at Ken collapsing a pocket or warming from the rocks.
Actually I think I see Ken rolling some crud off which drops onto the loaded area below the rock.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
It wasn't a jump cut, I thought it would go so traversed to the rocks and it went behind me, then I skied straight down and to my right (00:33) and the rest of it went...
Pretty sure it was wind-deposited snow from the small ridge to the right in the pic, it wasn't very deep but just shows how localised wind loading can be!