Originally I just wanted to hike around a bit on mellow terrain since some evening intervals in the dark last night left me feeling slightly flat today. But, the allure of steep, rocky chutes was too much to resist. We poked around just about all of Wolverine Cirque, and Granny's was the only chute with even a marginal amount of snow at the entrance.
AO navigating the rocky choke.
Lower down, the snow felt terribly slabby, but we proceded with caution and found a fun wind feature to play with.
Then, while traversing out of the cirque, we saw fresh natural slide debris on the far northern end. It was about 70 ft wide and ran a couple hundred feet and likely failed when the graupel layer became overly wind loaded. Sobering. On the way down toward Twin Lakes, there was also evidence of cracking and audible settling of the snow pack. So while the day was fun and educational, I wish I had the discipline to choose more wisely. I need to learn to be more patient.
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