Spring pow day at Blue Lakes

We experienced a warm and sunny start to our day out of the Hope Valley sno-park. A dense layer was observed at the surface, from yesterday's light rain. This became less pronounced as we gained elevation. Sunny slopes also became dense at the surface by mid-morning, and wet tree bombs were falling even in some shaded areas. We went to look at the previous avalanche near Polaris Bowl. It was partly obscured by additional snowfall, with clear evidence of recent wind loading. I decided that approaching the flanks to further examine the avalanche was not worth the risk of triggering another one, so I went to a nearby lower angle slope with a similar aspect and elevation to dig a quick snow profile. I found two density changes near the surface, and an ECT partially propagated on one 20cm down. I was careful to excavate my ECT to a layer 105cm down, which I suspect was the failure layer of the avalanche near Polaris Bowl. At this location, there was no crust associated with this layer - it was just a thin and subtle layer of 4 Finger hard rounding facets with 1 Finger hard snow above and below. On my ECT, I went a few extra hard taps beyond the standard 30, and couldn't get it to fail. Two Deep Tap tests did fail on this layer with Sudden Planar results. I tried to convince myself they were Resistant Planar, but they were not.