Description

Mount Howard sits behind Mt.

Matier on the Duffey Lake Road and is often looked at but much more rarely skied.

It's north face holds several rad looking lines but one major gash stands out. The Big Howie Couloir starts off a col between two sub-summits.

We approached from the south on a beautiful day with low avalanche hazard and spring-like conditions.

This didn't allow us to get any sense of the condition of the line but it avoided being under the cornice hazard that sits above. It took a bit of navigating (looking at FATMAP) to ensure we arrived at the correct col but when we did, we established a ski belay and explored the cornice.

It was substantial and a few cuts with a shovel dropped a small-car sized piece into the line.

The cornice bomb didn't trigger any avalanche so we felt pretty good about stability.

There was still a vertical wall of cornice and rock guarding the entrance so we built a small snow bollard and prepared to rappel in. Onsighting a line like this is excellent practice to deal with problems as they arise.

We didn't know exactly where to exit and were unsure of potential glacier cliffs or rock constrictions.

The initial couloir skied well with firm chalky snow and then opened into nice pow on the lower angle glacier and exit gullies.

We couldn't open it up completely at the bottom because of thinly covered avi debris but it was still an excellent descent!