The last two days I’ve been out skiing the Sherbrooke Lake Avalanche Paths on Paget Peak’s west aspect and found some great snow.
On Saturday went up with Chris, Brandon and Dan to ski the 3rd path. There was an uptrack in the area but it was extremely steep, we tried to use it to cut down on the work but whoever put that in must have had some big risers! The run down was amazing, it was filled with powder top to bottom. There was a previous track in it but the latest snowfall filled it in for the most part.
On Sunday Chris, Megan, Andrew and Rich came along to ski the 1st path. We used our uptrack from Saturday but about half way up Rich and Chris decided to separate from the group and do a shorter lap of the lower runout. The rest of us continued up to the top where we crossed over the 2nd path to access the 1st. Just before dropping in I got a text message from Chris’ InReach saying they triggered a size 1 avalanche on the solar aspect of the lower rib.
Nothing gave me the impression that the snow where we about to ski was of risk of sliding but since a slide happened lower down I decided to ski the line in shorter pitches than we did the day before. The first 100m pitch had a bit more wind slab in it but still skiing ok for the most part. The next couple of pitches had better snow and soon I was able to see the avalanche debris in the lower fan area. I skied down to get a look and the start zone was a thin rocky area, unlike the section the rest of the group would be skiing so I called them down and we skied down the fan one at a time back to the lake.
After getting the basic details of the avalanche we headed back down to the parking lot to end our day. Saturday was cloudy and warm, whereas Sunday cold and clear. Lots of people and tracks in the Ogden Shoulder area today.
