Observations around Fire Plug

We toured up and around Fire Plug today looking for some cold north-facing snow. We first toured up the saddle below Tamarack Peak to the "rabbit ears". The Hour Glass was heavily wind affected in the main bowl, but the SE side of the bowl had minimal wind effect. As we approached the rabbit ears the wind was coming out of the NW and actively loading the SE aspect at around 10 am.  

We skied the shot to the SE and followed the drainage to Galena Creek. We saw no signs of instability below treeline except for small areas that were actively cross-loading. We did however, see evidence of the snowpack solidifying as is evident by the settlement cones.

At around 1:30 PM, one of our groups witnessed the loose wet D1 slide come down in steep SE terrain on Mt. Rose at ~9000'. It ran ~400 ft and started from a small rock that had been warmed from the day's solar radiation.

We toured back up to the saddle of Fire Plug and on our descent to the cars the S aspect had a slight zipper crust.