Wind effect and wind slabs on Mt. Tallac

     We toured up Mt. Tallac this morning. Getting out of the truck the outside temps were well below freezing. As we toured up, there was a lingering and intermittent cloud cover near and above treeline that was in and out till we reached the summit. Below tree line snow conditions remain powdery and soft; however, surface hoar has started to form over the last couple of nights. Along the way up, we traveled through a solar facing aspect and there was a stout melt freeze crust that would be difficult to ski and had soft snow below it. As we continued up the Corkscrew tree ridge line,  there were several trees that displayed settlement cracks around the base of them. Once we hit 8500' the wind effect was more widespread and slabby conditions appeared more frequently. We could also start to fell a E breeze at this elevation that continued to gain strength as we climbed up. At about 9000' we stopped and dug a pit on NE aspect. There was wind slab present in this area and we got a chance to test it. On the shovel shear it released a planar block but did not fail on the shovel tilt, compression test or ECT. The compression test did find another layer 30cms down and it was buried surface hoar. We performed an 2xECT but did not get propagating results on this layer. We continued up towards the summit, but due to the extensive wind effect and sustrugi on the N. face we decided to stay below the summit and altered our route down. At this point the E winds were steadily transporting snow off the summit and ridge lines above tree line. The way down was mixed with variable conditions from wind effect and powdery snow on shaded aspects. No signs of instabilities were observed along the tour.