With no new snow after a relatively stable period, we headed up into the Center Gully (commonly referred to as the Left Gully) on Mt. Brown for some cruising. Ice conditions were occasionally thin, but generally good. Temps were at or above freezing in the lower elevations, but we could see significant spindrifting and hear the wind gusting hard up high. Cloud cover was decent, and what little morning sun happened didn't hit the west aspect above us. Low on the route, we crossed some significant depositions from last week (a friend's tracks from Friday were visible atop the debris).
Around 2pm, we watched a small wet loose slide coming down the gully steps a couple hundred feet above us. It didn't make it to where we were belaying, but we hightailed it up and out of the gully in case there was more.
It seems that our thinking about cloud cover and the warm temps being isolated down low wasn't accurate. Unique conditions breed unique avalanches, and snowpack doesn't like change. The breakdown of the inversions that have been the pattern for the last week made things hard to read; it's clear in hindsight that stepping back a bit in the face of the unique conditions would have been a better choice. Our position in a gully, which is both a funnel for everything above, and simultaneously a terrain trap, made us particularly vulnerable. Perhaps the fact that I was so warm and sweaty while ice climbing should have been the first clue...
