This trip, as a ski trip, was new for all the group except me. I had done it with Stan quite a few years ago. I had planned to basically take the same route as I remembered from that trip up to the good views I remembered from the ridge. As we know plans are made to be changed! The route with Stan angled up right from an avalanche path through a burn with widely spaced burned trunks with no tree wells.Nature, however, thwarted my plan as now new tightly spaced new growth 2-3 metre high would be quite a thrash on the route now it seemed. So we headed higher up the avalanche path. It felt fairly safe this day with an obvious thick rain crust that we thought would lock the deeper layers down. We did though tend to the side where we could and took the usual precautions. As we got higher there was obvious avalanche debris from the big natural cycle a few days ago. It does get steeper as you get higher and we cut climbers left out of the path. I think this maybe the best way to the alpine now as Terry at his high point said it looked doable to get to the alpine. It would be a gnarly ski down though as it was even more crusty, maybe even a sun crust in this area. At this point we decided to peel the skins and head down for a warm and sunny lunch at the base.
Bottom of the first run on Vermilion path
Sim, Dave and John deskinning.
Bill nicely chopping up the Vermilion path some more!
Rainer on the Vermilion path
John deskinning Vermilion burn