October 17, 2015, Heliotrope Ridge

With the remaining October weekends books up with non skiing related obligations it was do or die for turns this month. After much debate about where to go for some marginally skiable snow/ice within a reasonable distance, and resigning ourselves to a day of rain, Emma and I set out for heliotrope. Having skied there that last 4 of 5 months, we were not too excited to return to old reliable, especially after hearing reports with descriptors like "glassy", "bullet proof", and "heinous".

Despite reports for rain we found the sky to be remarkably clear for most of the day with only a light sprinkle right before the parking lot.

The glacier is remarkably broken up, with large cracks all the way down the ridge. Luckily we were able to find a section of relatively sun and rain softened firn which skied remarkably well given the conditions. Only the last 30 feet of glacier to the rocks were totally unskiable and required crampons for Emma and sketchy slipping and wet buttsliding for me. We probably had about a 1000 foot run with about 500 feet of vertical.

Overall the day greatly exceeded our expectations.