Jan 30, 2011, Commonwealth Basin, lower Red.

Friends Jay and Becky and myself headed up to do Red Mtn. Armed with our topo and info from the guidebook, we thought the good weather would allow us a summit. We were determined to not be deterred by the creek crossings that often seem to be the crux of the approach.

So when we saw the wonderfully easy log crossing just 20 or so minutes into the skin, we thought we were golden- why not cross early? The log bridge put us between the two large creeks, but we didn't realize the guide was still suggesting we stay east. We ended up trending far too far to the West (following tracks headed towards Lundin), and settled on ascending the ridge between the West and South faces of Red. Got up to about 5200', and decided that some of the steeper slopes weren't all that good looking. We did two laps of several hundred feet vert of decent powder turns on the western edge of the southerly face.

On the second trip down we fooled with trying to trigger the southerly face to go, and a firm stomp right under a rock resulted in the first picture. a 2'x2' section broke out, didn't really run anywhere, but the movement caused the top ~6" of light snow to break for about 10' downslope. A more extreme jump caused a 4'x4' section to go, and the whole section slid down, again 6" going. (Second picture). For those with more experience, likely a slope that is very skiable, but we played it safe and skied what we found in the trees.