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Blue Lake 25/8/13 - Avalanche Pics 26-Aug-2013 At 9:11:50 AM Damien Gildea

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Blue Lake is in OK condition, some ice gone since my last post, but lots of it covered or banked out by significant new snowfall recently. There's less climbable ice than a month ago, but still a few good pitches here and there. Did one short pitch of perfect one-stick sytrofoam in the middle of the central wall, that has a nice short wall of steep water ice next to it. Over the eastern side there are a couple of short steep flows copping the sun and giving some good steep top roping. There were around 15 climbers there yesterday, the most I've ever seen, plus another dozen or more camped along the way from Guthega to Twynam.

I don't know when this avalanche fell, I guess either the Friday or Saturday. It's the biggest avalanche I've seen in Australia, and I've seen other big ones fall out of this gully. Significant thing is that it was not the cornice that fell, it was the loaded slope ten feet or more below the cornice that cracked and slid, leaving a crown around 2ft high. The debris stretched pretty much down to the lake shore and contained some big blocks. A section over the wall west of Twynam had also cracked and slid beneath the cornice. There are some funky snow conditions out there right now, though most of the slopes are icy hard and windblown.