On Saturday night the first storm in an age rolled in. By Sunday morning, up to 10" of heavy snow had fallen. After listening to the forecast, we decided that the stashed cars in Mill Creek and BCC, a precursor to the tri-canyonal tour, were out of the question. With the danger rating on high, we ascended the Pole Line to Cardiff Pass. Up to the pass, it didn't seem like the snow had loaded too badly and we were not observing much cracking. We thought about dropping into Cardiff, but as soon as we got above the pass, the drifts became quite large and unstable. We turned around and lapped the low angle slopes of Pole Line. Neither the visibility or the snow were particularly great, but it certainly felt good to be skiing some real 'powder' again.
After a mid-morning lull, the snow started again and the winds picked up. We decided to ascend to Flagstaff with a view to skiing one of the windward Emma ridges. About 3/4 of the way up we turned around. The winds were howling and the lee slopes were loading extremely fast, making any decent quite hazardous. We got out of there quickly, setting off numerous soft slabs on steeper terrain. After the January lull, the avalanche game was definitely back in town.