Tuckerman Ravine 1/16/25
Jan 16, 2025
This morning's conditions seemed appropriate for a quick trip into Tuckerman Ravine to see how the skiing was shaping up. While the west side of the mountain & Bretton Woods are in a snow globe, it has been very dry on the east side. Fortunately the winds have been loading all the lines and they have filled in nicely.Â
The best snow (least textured) was in Chute, Lip, and Sluice but the density of the wind slab was mixed. I chose Chute because it was the most direct and typically offers sections of very soft snow. The weather was very cold, single digits and with a stiff breeze, my fingers had a hard time warming up. I punched up looker's left and topped out before the surface changed to sastrugi. *Note that wind slabs in Tuckerman Ravine are highly variable, often with inconsistent densities / stability. There was a remote triggered avalanche in Right Gully later this day. Certain aspects were side-loaded over the past few days which hadn't stabilized.
I skied down the Chute in very good conditions - the wind slab was supportive yet soft and never punched through. If I had more time, I would have liked to explored more, staying in the sun on the south facing lines.Â
Other observations: Left Gully is very filled in but was in the shade and had wind scour and naturally cycled (along with the rest of the bowl). Right Gully is still low and serves as a good approach to the snowfields / summit. Hillman's hasn't changed much in the past few days and is an efficient option for skiing as you only have to take your skis off for the exit vs the Tuckerman Ravine trail which is 5 - 10 minutes of boot skiing.Â
There are still plenty of rocks on the Sherburne Trail, enough that we still aren't sending rental skis into the backcountry. One storm would fix everything though...



