Wind slabs and weak cornices on Incline Peak.

We toured on Incline Peak today. A low cloud ceiling provided low visibility conditions with fog near the ridgetops. Snowfall was very light from mid morning through early afternoon with no measurable accumulation.

Breaking trail we did not create any snow surface cracking. We ski cut a couple of steep below treeline, NE aspect test slopes and saw no signs of storm slab instability. Settlement cones and settlement cracks around trees indicated ongoing rapid settlement and consolidation of the recent storm snow.

In ridgetop areas, wind slabs were reactive in some areas and stable in other areas. In areas where the wind slabs were stable, collapsing large cornice sections onto the slopes below produced no results. ECTX results also occurred in these areas. Where wind slabs were unstable in similar terrain, simple ski cuts produced 6 inch deep wind slab slab avalanche failures. Wind slabs that avalanched were 4F+ hard slab over F hard storm snow.

We limited our wind slab triggering attempts to manageable sized test slopes and did not engage with terrain large enough to produce a size D2 avalanche.