Middle Sister Diller Headwall Ski Descent - 5/20/24

We finished up our 3-day volcano extravaganza with Middle Sister after successful summits and ski descents of Shasta and McLoughlin! The forecast called for cool temperatures in the mid-20s at the summit along with a mild breeze, so we started late to give the snow plenty of time to soften. We followed the softening corn up the Hayden Glacier and followed an established boot back up the North Ridge to the summit. It was an extremely chill approach and amazingly scenic!
Our original plan had been to ski the SE Ridge, or the North Face of conditions allowed. Diller was in the back of our minds, but we figured it would be much too cold for conditions to allow for a safe ski descent... that is, until we saw a group of 5 drop in while we were still making our way up the Hayden Glacier! Now it was just a question of timing. as we neared the summit, intermittent clouds began moving in and a breeze kicked up. The sun had also lost some of its angle on the line, so things were a giant question mark until we were right above it.
I cut the slope several times, testing the slightly different aspects before committing our team to the line. The corn had just started to refreeze, but was nowhere near solid and made a satisfying tinkling sound as you moved through it - almost providing some resistance to the otherwise softened corn underneath. It was perfect. Had conditions not been as soft as they were, we might have had some real issues with some of the features in the couloir, but the sun had done its work. Runnels, avalanche debris, and sun cups were all surprisingly manageable and we had a great ski descent of this iconic Oregon line!