Fireplug OBs

We did an afternoon tour in the Fireplug area.  4-6" of cold new snow on top of a supportable crust on the climb to the saddle.  Exposed S facing aspects had a more scoured and breakable crust.

N and NE aspects held cold snow over a softer base.  We knocked small, soft, easily kickable cornices onto an obviously windloaded NE facing steeper slope with no cracking no releases, the cornices rolled down the slope.  We ski cut adjacent less loaded slopes with no cracking no releases.  Lower on the slope we did find one steeper pocket with approx 4" storm slab that released as a slab and slid to the bottom of the slope with turns and then ski cuts.  At about 8600' the crust beneath the new snow became more apparent and skiing deteriorated.

A pit on a N facing 30 deg slope at 8900' showed a total snow depth of approx 145cm and approx 15cm new soft fist hard snow.  There was a thin crust beneath the new snow, beneath which the pack was well consolidated four finger to one finger, with some softer snow at the ground level.  ECTs had no results.  

On the way back to the truck we did see some minor cracking of windslabs above more southerly exposures, with a more pronounced crust beneath the new snow.

Although we did find the one isolated patch of instability, we had to look pretty hard for it.