Connaught

The effort-to-reward ratio on Saturday had been a bit silly; Bruins Pass was a long way to go for some so-so north facing terrain. So after a couple of beers with the animals in the hotel...



...we decided to stay another night. Nick came back up and we went straight back into the Connaught to the north facing fans on Cheops. We first skied up into the north facing bowl seen in this photo from yesterday.



After cutting back and forth across the lower fan we worked our way up onto a moraine. Generally we avoid moraines, they're always problematic, but this seemed the wisest place to be. We had stopped for a quick bite and were just taking in the surroundings when a terrific "Craaack!" jolted us to the core. An avalanche had cut loose from the top of Cheops and was thundering down the face on the opposite side of the bowl from us. There was a brief brown-trousers moment before we realized that we were in a safe place. We snapped a few photos of the ensuing powder cloud and aftermath from our ridiculous vantage point.







Then skied the fan below a couple of times.



And worked our way over to the next fan on lookers-left and had a good long ski down here too.



Turns-to-effort ratio? Excellent. Let's go home.