Major avalanche activity up Pine creek. All slopes. Experienced massive avalanche while climbing Blue route today. Climber managed to withstand while on lead, belayer managed to find shelter. Size of avalanche forced a downclimb/lower. Climber managed to come down clean and escape the fall zone before 2nd avalanche. If climbing, recommend belay from climbers left at rock band below climb only. 2nd avalanche was twice as long, constant fall for approx. 8-10 sec 10-15 min. delay, extremely heavey with rock fall. Complete runnout, we think 300+ yards. 15 min. later Green Route slid, almost as extensive. We were geared and climbing by 8:30 am. The slide occured around 9:15am, just after the sun hit the exposed gully above. There were no signs of activity prior to climbing. After speaking with a climber on the way out, he had mentioned slids Thursday, later in the day. Pay attention to temps. and BE SAFE!!!! My partner is sleeping with his tools tonight... Maybe it is time for rock.
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Losing its color
Green is still in, looks like blue too. Not particularly fun, but entertaining in a way. Lots of fracturing, but the ice still seems good enough, I was able to get good pro the whole way. Enough ice has melted off the climb that we were able to pluck off two peices of tat v-threads without any chopping - but its not excessively runnelly or too hollow. Better than frigid rock climbing eh? Cheers. (oh and I picked up a whole mess of brand X beer cans in the parking lot... I guess lets clean up after the partiers...???)
-Olin