Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Crag & Route Beta

Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
All NSW	(General)	(General)	(General)

Topic Date User

Ice Conditions 2016: Buller, Blue Lake et al. 18-Oct-2016 At 9:14:26 AM TRADgic

Message

Yo Damo, gotta chime in here. The line under the cornice is a 'Crown Wall', as documented elsewhere by the various avalanche advisories. This face slid (as the debris below would clearly indicate) following the storm event that was I think late September. The right hand side or the face also has a clearly defined crown wall also. This 'schrund, as a result of the snowpack creating a fault where one half decides it's off to become glacier (or other subsidence beneath like depth hoar leading slow wet slide). The snowpack above decides it will stay as 'mountain'. I think in this instance the avalanche event has created a weekness that has later propogated a fissure 'to ground' and is slowly subsiding . The nett result is that the cornice above is the equivalent of 20 full cargo containers sitting teetering above a slope with no bridging support from the snowpack below. Effectively a now a cornice that is becoming a serac. Semantics? Do you agree? Just figure it's best not to play the objective danger down. You could be sunning yourself lakeside and get smudged by this puppy once the cohesion fails.