I had planned on a 6:30 am start, but got caught up with some things and didn’t start hiking until 7:45 am. The forecast showed cool and cloudy weather well into the afternoon, so I wasn’t too worried about the later start. Even with the rain at lower elevations, the snow was mostly supportable and made for quick travel. I planned to ascend Andrew’s Glacier to the divide and ski the Martini Glass and potentially something in the Sky Pond Cirque after. I planned to use Andrew’s Glacier as a way to see how the new snow bonded and how much wind loading there was last night. On Andrew’s Glacier, I found almost no signs of instability. There were a few isolated pockets on a SE aspect near treeline where the snow hadn’t bonded very well and was wanting to sluff with the little bit of sun in the early morning. Other than that, I found around 4 inches of new snow on Andrew’s Glacier with very isolated pockets of windslabs 4 to 8 inches thick. I felt good about my observations and elected to continue to the top of the Martini Glass to have a look at the entrance. The main entrances, skier's right of the large cornice, had an obvious wind slab. Given the exposure at the bottom of the line, I elected to take the furthest possible skier's left entrance, which had minimal loading. I dropped in at 11:10 am. It was 4 to 8 inches of wind-blown powder for a few hundred feet with no cracking and minimal sluffing. Below that, the snow transitioned to a supportable sun crust with almost no sign of new snow. Less than ideal skiing, but I started to feel really good about the stability and let my guard down a bit. Below this is the crux of the line where the upper bowl chokes into a couloir with a substantial convex roll and a slope angle in the low to mid-40s. Right above this, the snow transitioned back to wind-blown snow. This was my first time down this line, and I was surprised to find the convex roll, especially with wind loading so far below the ridge. There are some big cliffs below the crux in the immediate fall line, so I started descending the steeper rollover exclusively using ski cuts. On my second ski cut, the entire width of the couloir slid below me. It had a crown ranging from 4 to 8 inches and was a pocket roughly 40 by 80 feet and ran the remainder of the couloir (around 400 vertical feet). The bed surface was cold and dry, reminiscent of recycled powder and skied well. During my descent up to this point, I had failed to notice that the sun was back out and shining directly on the exit of the couloir. At the bottom of the couloir, I traversed into a different gully feature that is used to avoid the big cliffs in the fall line. On my first turn, most of the width of this gully started moving as a wet loose. I was on top of it and moving with it for a second before I was able to ski off of it. This bed surface was a breakable crust. This gully has large overhanging cliffs above it that I believe had radiated much more heat than anywhere else on the line. It went from dry winter-like snow to wet snow in less than 200 vertical feet. The wind slab occurred at 11:15 am, and the wet loose at 11:21 am.

Obviously, some mistakes were made today. I felt like Andrew’s Glacier was a good, low-consequence up route where I would be able to get a good feel for any wind slab development that may have occurred with a very easy bailout option. While it was the same aspect of the slope I descended, it had a radically different slope angle and was much less of a confined feature. I also feel like I played it safe on the entrance to the Martini Glass by avoiding the obvious pockets of wind loading immediately below the ridge. I should have talked to friends who had skied it before, though, because I don’t think I would have skied it in these conditions if I had known about the midline convex roll. Lastly, if I had started at my intended time, the wet loose would have been a non-issue. I could have done a better job of noticing the rapid warming once I had committed to the line.

The Glacier Gorge trailhead to the north shoulder of Taylor Peak. Ascended Andrew's Glacier and descended the Martini Glass, also known as the Chiropractic Couloir.

Last night, it rained and sleeted at lower elevations. The snow started sticking around 10,000 feet. There were 3 to 4 inches of new snow at Andrew’s Meadow - maybe a bit more on the divide, but it is hard to say with the wind loading. Clouds were in and out all morning with short periods of intense sun. 10 to 20 mph gust on the divide with some snow transport.