Trimmer Observation

I toured on Trimmer Peak today. From parts of South Lake Tahoe it appeared that the lookers right avalanche slide path had gotten bigger and that there had possibly been a large avalanche during the cycle that ran around 3/14, but traveling around this area today I couldn't see any signs of a large recent avalanche. There are certainly tons of snow in the area and the base of the slide paths appears to have some gently mounds that could be from avalanches earlier in the season but I didn't see evidence like what is still easy to see on Tallac or Jakes. It's likely that the large amount of snow we have received has covered some of the small trees growing up in the slide path making it look larger. 

We found shallow dust on crust conditions down low, but the amount of soft snow increased quickly as we gained elevation. Winds were mostly nonexistent during our time on the mountain but we saw evidence of previous SW winds at higher elevations and felt a few N gusts as we started to leave the area in the early afternoon. The snow in the trees below 9000 feet was high quality powder. I dug a pit and couldn't find buried surface hoar but there was some graupel in the upper 25 cms of the snow. I got at ECTN 12 20 cms down from the surface. As we gained more elevation and approached the summit ridge and sparser trees we found obvious areas of wind slab which were fairly easy to avoid. We encountered no signs instability while descending. 

Photo 1: Looking at Trimmer in the distance with burned forest from Caldor fire closer.

Photo 2: Evidence of previous SW winds one the upper ridge of the approach peak. 

Photo 3: This small near tree line NE facing test slope at about 8200 feet showed virtually no cohesive snow. 

Photo 4: Small N facing cornice at 8200 feet broke a few inches deep and propagated about 10 feet in response to ski kicks.

Photo 5: Close to 9000 feet there were many small wind slabs that easily produced cracks

Photo 6: ECTN 12. I didn't find buried Surface Hoar but did see buried graupel. 

Photo 7: The looker's right slide path of the 11's.