Snow pit near brockway summit

We toured near Brockway summit this afternoon and conducted a few snowpit tests in a sheltered N facing location at 7200 feet to gauge stability. We first conducted an Extended column test (photo 1). The faceted 1/4 rain crust is marked in orange. This layer was much looser than the snow above or below it. Esing a crystal card we could see some small square edged facets with the naked eye. The results of this test was an ECTN22 2-3 inches above the rain crust. Pulling on the back of the block did not produce any failures either. There was about 14 inches of new low-density snow at this location. The total snow depth was 140cm and we observed lots of loose sugary snow below the rain crust layer down to 70cm where we stopped digging. We also conducted a PST in the same location along the faceted crust. As we cut up the column along the crust after 15cm the column failed vertically, but not along the crust we were cutting. We continued to cut again and the same thing happen. (Photo 2 with the two points of failure marked in orange). The slope angle of the PST was ~10 degrees.