Thin Cover and Windloading on Waterhouse Peak

Climbed fairly directly to subpeak at 9k' NE of Waterhouse summit and took a direct route back down. Strong gusts blowing from the west while approaching across the meadow. Moderate snowfall throughout. Winds calm-light in the tree, but near the hump in less treed areas the wind picked up and was swirling, mostly out of the E/NE.

Partially exposed NNW slopes had minor cracking on a wind skin and more exposed areas had more developed slaps 2-4". In one spot a crack propagated from a rock about 1' uphill of the skin track, extending 2' in each direction (picture 1). Pulling on the crack resulted in the entire slab breaking off the rock surface cohesively with a depth of about 0-10" (picture 2). We made an effort to stay on low angle slopes during the climb, so we may have missed other warning signs in steeper terrain.

While skiing one shallow 5'x5' slab cracked off below a skier on a ~30 degree slope but did not propagate. Underlying snow surface (where present) was supportable and crusty but skis were able to bite into it well. In many areas no base was present. Landing on a rock with any sort of force generally resulted in bottoming out and lots of downed tree still present a major obstacle.

Snow depth was almost too much to make downhill progress on such a shallow slope. I doubt whether this route will be skiable later today or tomorrow.