White Out Conditions on Incline Lake Peak

Whiteout conditions started on our drive over to Mt. Rose on 267 and on Mt. Rose Hwy. Skinning across the lake to Incline Lake Peak, we found wind ripples in the flats and blowing snow continued in any open areas (even in below treeline terrain). We gave the runout zone of the main bowl a wide berth and skinned up low angle slopes in the trees to the northern end of the peak. We could feel density changes in the storm snow but only got small minor cracking around tree wells and some small test slopes in below treeline terrain. None of these cracks extended more than a few inches from the ends of our skis nor did they ever go farther than a foot downslope. We did get one ECTP on a storm snow weakness about 2 ft. below the surface and several other ECTN's at various depths in the storm snow.  Total storm snow depth was about 4 ft. 

Once we got into more exposed near treeline terrain, visibility decreased due to intense blowing snow and gale force winds.  We stayed on low angle slopes and found some small wind-loaded test slopes. The cornices at the top of these small slopes failed easily and ski kicks on the slopes produced long shooting cracks (see photo). We kept using low-angle treed slopes for our descent due to stability and visibility concerns. On the way down, we did find another 35-degree, sheltered test slope below treeline and a ski cut on that slope did not produce any results.