Cloudsplitter Mountain Guides

Zeb and Steve getting psyched for good turns on the Bennie's Brook slide.

Ben on Chouinard's Gully above Chapel Pond.

March is the best time of winter- the days are longer, the snowpack is deeper, the bigger ice flows are still fat and plastic and the temps are much more pleasant. Weekends can be busy as everyone scrambles to get their winter adventures in before the spring thaw, but weekdays we often have the place to ourselves- whether we're skiing or climbing, now is the peak of the season!

Beth enjoying the challenge of an Adirondack classic.

Beth and Ben hanging out in Chouninard's Gully.

This past weekend the Mountaineer (along w/ Cloudpslitter Mountain Guides and a whole slew of sponsors- including Primaloft, Backcountry Magazine and Dynafit- among others) hosted our 8th annual Backcountry SkiFest. We really lucked out this year with a recent dumping of wet and heavy snow and bluebird days. We had tours head out for a nordic traverse of the High Peaks, an up-over-and down tour of Wright Peak, up Bennie's Brook for great powder skiing, up to the Angel Slides to check out the recent avalanche activity (more on that below) and a big crew of reps and demo gear at the Otis Mountain rope tow in nearby New Russia on Staurday- where the tele clinics, skin clinics, Mammut beacon park and a full selection of AT & telemark demo gear were available.

Avalanche activity in the Adirondacks?

We had a heavy snow event on Feb. 24-25 receiving @ 2 feet of very wet and heavy snow over two days- which set us up nicely for our favorite backcountry ski season but also set the stage for legitimate avalanche hazard and poor stability at certain locations, elevations and terrain features. Two skiers were partially buried (and bruised) on 2/27/10 in a soft slab avalanche on the wider Angel Slide on Wright Peak above Marcy Dam. There's been plenty of chatter on-line and in the local media about the incident:  http://www.telemarktalk.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=66991 and http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/511546.html

Terrain selection is the most effective way to minimize avalanche risk, and we had found great and safe skiing with our guests on the Marcy trail (the day of the accident) and on Bennie's Brook (the following few days and all week long.) But with the Skifest coming up we (me, Emilie and our regional Dynafit and Mammut rep Mike Kaz) headed up to the Angel Slides on Friday for first-hand observations and to make a stability and hazard assessment for our tour headed there on Saturday. 

Here's a video of what we found. Some snow geeks can always critique these techniques, terminology and interpretations- but you get the drift. It's rare that we have any stability issues around here, so it's worth actually noting what is going on. We tried several conservative ski cuts on the way down, but with no results. It would likely take some more significant compression (e.g. a big cartwheeling digger or triggering a sweet spot- as did the accident survivors) but clearly the potential for a (now) skier triggered hard slab avalanche still exists- predominantly on isolated terrain features at higher elevations and on the northerly aspects. Not surprisingly, we chose not to venture out onto the finger slide with our Skifest tour, but it's likely local skiers will continue to assess and poke at the edges of this one as stability improves.

I should point out too that - otherwise- skiers have been enjoying excekent stability at lower elevations and - more importantly- other aspects (E, S and W). Spatial variability is significant around here, so choosing the right micro-terrain and objectives makes all the difference.

With spring on the horizon, there's a majority of otherwise good and stable terrain to seek out instead until then. There's still plenty of good water ice to climb, and the backcountry mountaineering routes on Mt. Colden and Gothics North Face are coming into peak season.