Elephant's Back and Hump

We toured up to Elephant's Back and returned via Elephant's Hump to Red Lake.

The main NE face of Elephant's Back was characterized by a solid ice crust covered by a dusting of new snow but only intermittently (see picture). The winds had blown the snow around so that there were patches of dust on crust and other patches of pure ice.

We skied off the ridge below the first main rock formation, but we did not ski all the way down to the trees due to larger ice patches on the next section down. We traversed north 100 yds and descended east to the trees.

Our plan was then to descend north off the peak just west of the Hump, but the slope there in the shade and trees consisted of breakable hard crust and surface hoar.

We went to the Hump, intending to ski off the E/SE face, but it was dominated by bushes, rocks, and wind-hardened sastrugi. We descended N/NE off the Hump and encountered light breakable crust with soft snow underneath at about boot penetration.

In conclusion, we mainly saw dust on crust or hard ice crust above treeline and breakable crust in the trees.