ECTNs on the go at Horse Meadow

While riding the terrain above Horse Meadow today, I performed several ECTs on the go, and none of them propagated. In order to test the Jan 29th layer, I only performed ECTs where I saw new surface hoar on the surface, with the thought that these locations would have also had surface hoar prior to the storm on Jan 29th. I tried to test on slopes of similar aspect/elevation to avalanche start zones or tracks. These were all openings in the trees on shaded slopes, at +/- 9,000ft elevation. Although I could easily see the Jan 29th interface, in none of the locations was there an obvious intact SH layer. The more identifiable weak layer was rounding facets. After performing the ECTs, I pried away the columns to look more closely for SH and did find feathery grains incorporated into the snow above and below. Columns did not pry easily, and left surfaces only about 50% planar. ECTNs at the following locations:

• 38.82239, -119.90044
• 38.83361, -119.87876
• 38.82714, -119.88424
• 38.83113, -119.86820

The afternoon was warm and sunny, with no winds observed along ridgetops. Some rollerball activity was seen on sunny slopes, though not quite entraining enough snow to be considered avalanches. Many shaded slopes even had a slightly denser layer at the surface from the warm temps.