Windy and warm at Carson Pass

Pic 1: Strong to extreme E winds along Frog Lake Ridge today. Dinner plate sized pieces of sastrugi had blown off and were collected in the lee side of this rock. During gusts, it was hard to maintain balance just while standing. The heavy snow on the surface was reducing wind transport, but it was still happening.

Pic 2: Sastrugi in the foreground, and natural roller balls in the background. Test slopes to the west of the ridge did not produce cracking, but did result in roller balls that grew to ~2ft in diameter.

Pics 3 and 4: Skiing wasn't that great, so I spent time digging two test pits about a half mile apart from each other. One was on a NE aspect, and the other due N. In both, the crust was down a little more than 2ft. Although shovel tilts still produced planar results within the storm snow, CTs were Resistant Planar at this depth and ECTs did not propagate. Deep Taps on the layer below the crust had no results, and though there was a thin layer of loose grains just below the crust, they were easy to press together in my hand. I did manage to find the large surface hoar layer intact about 4" below the crust, and a Deep Tap at this layer produced a Sudden Collapse result. This was in my N facing test pit that was very close to a wide depression along the ridge that might have a small pond or swamp when not covered in snow. I could not find this layer in the NE facing test pit, which was on a more continuous slope.