Elephant's Back

We toured from Carson Pass to Elephant’s Back to the south side ridge to about 9,500 feet. The wind was strong to gale force out of the SW. We dug several hand shear test and the snowpack was fairly uniform with a few “soft” wind slab layers at variable depths. We then toured back to the NE side where the wind was light to moderate, and the snow cover was deeper. We observed 3 old cornice fall avalanches on the NE side of Elephant’s Back. The debris field ended at the bench before the roll over. We skied the skier’s left line and down to the road in between Frog Lake and Elephant’s Hump then skinned up the road back to Carson Pass. Overall, it was awesome snow and there was enough coverage that we did not hit any rocks…. Until we got down to the last drop above the Red Lake Road.