Snowpack obs from Deep Creek

Our tour in Deep Creek today didn't show any obvious signs of instability, although we were actively avoiding avalanche terrain. We stuck to low angle (30 degrees and under) slopes and avoided trigger points and other areas of concern. The sun was intense and was already starting to have an effect on southern slopes by 10am in this area. North facing slopes remained shaded and the surface snow cold all day. I didn't observe any of the shallow storm snow slab instabilities that we have been seeing the last couple of days, we didn't see any shooting cracks or whumphs. 

I dug a quick pit near ridgeline @7700' in a wind loaded north facing area, and the underlying crust/weak layer combo was easy to observe about 2 feet down. An extended collumn test failed along this weak layer(ECTP21, SP), and the pit exposed the fact that there still is an obvious strong over weak layering present. 

Photo#1- A quick hand pit shows my hand pulling cleanly through the isolated collumn withought any slab failures. 

Photo#2- An extended collumn test failed and propagated along the base of the windslab. 

Video- Strong over weak layering. 

Looking across the valley we could see roller balls starting to become active on southern slopes, and looking up valley to the crest we could see numerous natural slab avalanches from the recent avalanche cycle. 

We did hear a report from another party that they had a significant whumph in this zone a few hours before we were there.