Quick report
I went for a ski tour today in the Northern Elkhorns. The temperature was 16 degrees F at 8300’ . The sky was overcast and winds were calm. There was 4”-6” of new snow that fell overnight. The new snow fell from the sky unaffected by wind. I dug a snowpit at 8281’ on a northeast facing slope that was 30 degrees steep. The height of snow at this location was approximately 6.5’ (200cm). The snow pack structure at this location was predominately right side up. Dense consolidated snow at the bottom becoming progressively less consolidated at the snow surface. However, I did find a couple of thin weak faceted layers sandwiched in between strong consolidated snow layers in the upper part of the snowpack that concerned me. I performed an Extended Column Test. The column failed with propagation on the 12th tap, down 35 centimeters (14”) from the snow surface. The weak layer was about 4 centimeters thick and made up of rounding facets. I did not dig all the way to the ground at this location. Other than poor snowpit test results, I did not observe any other signs of instability. I did not see evidence of natural avalanches in the vicinity of my ski tour. Also, I did some ski cutting on steep terrain features and was unable to trigger any avalanche activity. Because of the instability we were able to produce in our snowpit (ECTP12⬇️35), we opted to travel conservatively on low angle terrain.