Wind drifting on Mt. Judah

I hiked the N slopes of Mt. Judah today, looking at the new snow and wind slab development. Throughout this area there was just about 1 foot of right side up new snow in wind protected areas. As I ascended and quickly moved into areas with some wind exposure, drifting was immeadiately apparent as expected. Drifts were mostly 2 feet deep with up to 2.5 feet deep observed. As I moved into view of Wildflower Ridge, a traditionally heavily wind loaded NE aspect near treeline, I could see a substantial wind pillow and the beginnings of cornice formation along the ridgetop.

I dug a testpit into this wind pillow to assess wind slab stability. About the top 8 inches of the 2.5 foot deep snowpack in this location was a soft wind slab of 4F hard snow sitting on top of F hard storm snow. Cracking was minimal in this area. I performed a few ECTs and got 2 x ECTN-3 and 1 x ECTP-2. Signs of instability were limited to wind affected areas with no signs of instability in wind protected areas as expected.

I moved up to the N end of the Mt. Judah summit ridge and noted thin snowcover in the E face bowl and similar wind pillow/early stage cornice formation along the ridgetop. Descending back down, my tracks across the top of Wildflower Ridge had been refilled by continued drifting snow after about 35 minutes.