March 19, 2011, Cornice Ridge Peak Zone, BC

"Appropriately" Named - Cornice Ridge Peak

Derrick, Julie and I (friends from Spokane) decided on a ass-crack of dawn departure from Spokane Saturday morning allowing for two full days of touring among the Kootenay's of Canada.
The weekends plan was to ski the zones north of Kootenay Pass.  Saturday unfortunately ended up being one of those all to common low visibility days.  Between the visibility and the miles of heavily corniced ridge finding safe lines to ski was a challenge to say the least. At one put in the day I cautiously crept towards a cornice that ended up snapping off in a blink of an eye.  The result of the cornice break was a me flying through the air in the opposite direction, kinda like a cat.... well a cat with a stoned like reaction.  Lets just say, your not going to jump off a cornice before it breaks:) Later on in the day on the west face of Cornice Ridge Peak we noticed a huge fraction line that appeared to originate from a large rock outcropping, then managed to propagate for about 100 yards, likely the result of a warm clear Friday.