Observation from Powderhouse

Above about 8800 feet snow became noticeably more wind effected and slabby at Powderhouse. Breaking trail just above treeline created multiple whumpfs and shooting cracks on low angle terrain. Strong SW winds were transporting an impresssive amount of snow along the summit ridge.

Performed multiple ECTs and all propogated within the first 10 loading steps. Most in the 4-7 range. Failure was consistently at the old snow/new snow interface. Snow grains at this interface appeared to be a mix of buried near surface facets and surface hoar, but the blowing snow made grain id challenging. Attached video shows an ECTP 7 that was representative of the other tests.

Closer to afternoon winds seemed to pick up and were swirling from multiple directions. This seemed to cause lower elevation snow to become more wind effected. 

Photo 1: This crack shot out approximately 40 feet in front of my ski. The slope angle in this photo is 20 degrees. Skinning in this area created other shooting cracks and several whumpfs. 

Photo 2: Profile of where crack propagated.