McClellan Butte, NE Couloir, April 8

Another fun trip at McClellan.  Skied the lower half of the couloir.  Having been lucky enough to make it to the top of Cannon Couloir a couple weeks ago, at the point where I dropped in on McClellan, I would describe it more like a fairly wide gully.  Some day I'd like to get near the top where it looks a lot more intense.  During the climb I ran out of time at an elevation of about 4300'.  I tried to pick a somewhat representative location for a snow pit, NE aspect.  I found two relatively harder layers at depths of 1 and 2 feet down.  I did a rutschblock test and got shear failure on the upper layer a foot down after several hard jumps (R6?).  I could not get the deeper layer to slide.

I'm just starting to dig more pits so please don't take my results too seriously.

After the good pit results, a yellow NWAC forecast, existing recent avy debris and skier compaction I still thought the run looked like death on a stick as far a slides go so I decided to do one last test by skiing down a little in the trees to the east.  Everything felt solid after hard turns on some test slopes so I finally entered the couloir about half way down.  A few good turns in places but more thrilling than fun.  Snow was not great.  Better turns farther down towards the road where the snow was more consistent.

Pictures:

https://picasaweb.google.com/111955726492601080503/McClellan_040812?authkey=Gv1sRgCIzA-Puhgbjf7wE#

Video (short and simple):

http://youtu.be/7AYWKWWHI50

Cheers.