Wing Ridge

When we arrived to the parking lot, previous wind transport was evident above 8,000'.   We saw several D1.5 natural avalanches, and observed some "ghost tracks" from the previous day.  We toured up phat ridge to get a look at any recent natural avalanche activity and to observe the current snowpack structure in the Northern Wallowas.  We saw numerous natural slab avalanches in Salt Creek Drainage.  The depth of these is estimated at 8".  We observed what looked like a wind slab avalanche release below cornices along South Ridge.  We toured over towards 1st Bowl to look at several filled in crowns and covered debris in the runout.  It looked like a mixture of dry loose natural avalanches and slabs that ran during peak intensity of last night's snow.  

Digging three different snowpits (2 on NE and 1 on ESE) within the mid-elevation band all told a similar story.   Weak sugary facets are failing and propagating in snowpack tests.  On the ESE test, I couldn't even isolate the column before the whole thing came falling onto me.   

While along exposed test slopes, we were able to step on or ski cut and release several D1 wind slabs that were 6-8" deep.  

Note** in the avalanche problems below, I just listed the distribution of where I observed these problems in the extent of today's travels.    

We observed 30-40 cm of new snow that had fallen in the last 24 hours.  The depth of the storm snow since 1/31 was about 65 cm.  In places that had not seen previous or current wind loading, when I stepped out of my skis, I sank up to my upper thigh (Boot Pen of 80 cm).  We observed poor snowpack structure in the three pits we dug.  2 of which were on NE aspects, and 1 on a ESE aspect.  I conducted ECT's in all the pits and found full propagation on the 14th tap in both of the pits on NE aspects.  There was significantly less total snow depth on the pit on the ESE aspect and there was a 1/2" crust above the January facets.  As I was isolating the column, the whole column collapsed.  This test result is very alarming and indicates very poor snowpack structure on solar-facing aspects in the mid-elevation band.