Pit from North Facing Terrain in Carson Range

Dug a pit in north facing terrain on East Peak, outside of the Heavenly Resort boundary, in terrain that is very similar to a lot of the sidecountry out of the gates at Heavenly. We purposefully selected an obviously wind-loaded convex roll, that was northerly in aspect, althought receiving sun due to its shallow angle. Total snw depth in this location was 280 cm, which is not representative of the snow depths on average in this area.  We were targeting the near surface facets that we have found in several other locations. We found them about 15-20 cm deep, underneath a stiff wind slab that allowed zero ski penetration and only 1 cm of boot penetration. These facets failed in a compression test, with a relatively clean SC result, and then surprisingly, did propagate after only 12 taps. Obviously, this magnitude of weakness is not widespread, as we specifically targeted a location where we might find these results, but clearly this is something that bears watching. Also, interestingly, the snowpack showed a dramatic temperature gradient in the upper 30 cm.