At the top of the chutes, we found ourselves staring down steep, rocky, unforgiving looking slopes. Dan and I hadn't truly skied many couloirs in the backcountry, so we were excited to get out on a stable day to test our skills. The Lake Basin Chutes are comprised of 3-4 chutes that dart down the NE side of the Wall of Pow. They're around probably 45-50 degrees at their steepest (according to caltopo), but most of them start steep and angle out after a turn or two. NWAC hadn't started up their daily avalanche forecasting, but with our analysis of the weather, we knew we were primarily going to be looking for instability in the form of wind slabs. With all of us having avalanche training and lots of experience in winter conditions, we felt safe analyzing the snowpack as we went and making decisions in the field.

We walked across the rim, looking at each couloir to decide which one we wanted to drop in to. With it being very early season to be attempting something like this, we were primarily looking for a couloir where we wouldn't be skiing over rocks constantly. We dialed in on the third couloir up the mountain, and started analyzing the snowpack. Dan and I had been touring in the area the day before, dug a pit, and found very stable conditions. However, we wanted to be even more certain that what we were skiing into wouldn't collapse on us. We found a cornice, cut it with Dan's snow saw, and watched it drop. It hit the snow, broke apart, and the broken pieces slid to a stop not too far from where it landed, taking a bit of slough with it. So far everything was as expected. The next step was to ski cut the slope. Sam volunteered to do it, and made a plan to cut across to a little knoll with a tree. We all geared up with our helmets, snapped in to ski mode, and turned on our radios. "Dropping!" yelled Sam as he descended into the couloir. He cut across the slope, and like we expected, only slough fell down behind him. We decided on a spot to meet up further down the couloir, and Sam squiggled down the couloir towards the spot. Success! Stable as expected, and besides a few turns around some exposed rocks, no further unexpected sharks.