Bad or Good Luck?

Set out this morning to ski a couloir in the Mission mountains that I've looked at for years. Unfortunately for Patrick and I, temps didn't drop below freezing last night and left us with horrible snow conditions. After 4 hours of bushwhacking and slogging in crotch deep snow, we finally gave up.

Patrick on the approach ice

Our approach wasn't all horrible though. We got to do some ice climbing with ski gear on our backs for the first time. It was a fun moment, but followed by a scary reality. Like I said, temps hadn't been freezing that night and probably hadn't for several nights. We climbed the approach ice, but moments after we crossed underneath some rotten looking ice, it cut loose. Not sure how much, but it definitely had to weight tons.

Just one more incident to add to a long list of close calls.

Crossing under the rotten ice/ The aftermath