Hard wind slabs on Hidden Peak.

We toured Hidden Peak today to look at new snow across the elevation spectrum, look at wind slabs along the summit ridge, and to start to monitor the buried Dec 12 rain crust.

Poor conditions exist below 7,000' on west shore Peaks, improving dramatically above 7,500'. This matches well with Sierra Crest locations. Supportable rain crust was observed beneath the recent new snow all the way up to the summit ridge at 9,100'. This was key for staying off the ground and rocks in the less than one foot deep snowpack on the lowest portions of the peak.

A trace of new snow existed at 6,600'. About 1-2 inches of new snow was present at 7,100'. About 7 inches of new snow was present above 8,000'.

As we moved into near treeline terrain and approached the summit, the new snow was wind affected and dense with minimal ski penetration. Hard wind slabs up to 1 foot thick were noted along the summit ridge. Little to no skier triggered cracking of the wind slabs was observed.

A test pit dug along the summit ridge (NNE aspect, 9,100') did not reveal any signs of instability for either the surface wind slab or the buried Dec 12 rain crust.