Tamarack Peak

From the car, we could see large ripples of wind-blown snow on the slopes around Tamarack Peak and blowing snow along the ridges. As soon as we left the trailhead, we could tell that the wind-affected snow extended into some open areas in near and below treeline terrain. The density of the snow over the last 24 hours also stood out. This most recent snow felt right-side up and had bonded very well to itself. Our skis did not sink more than a few inches into the snow. Below the most recent storm snow, we could feel lighter layers (4F to F hardness) of snow and an old crust with facets under it. We stopped in a sheltered area to investigate, and our tests did not produce unstable results (ECTN x 2).

The snow got stiffer in higher, more wind-exposed areas, and signs of wind loading, like blowing snow, ripples, and large cornices, became more widespread. We tried to ski cut, kick, and even jump on wind-loaded test slopes, but the hard, dense wind slabs (1f to P hardness in many places) resisted cracking. On the other hand, the large cornices above these slopes remained fragile. We could break them easily with ski kicks several feet from their edges. One of these large cornice pieces triggered a long shooting crack and two additional cornice failures on adjacent test slopes when it hit the slope. We dug into the snow below the crack. We found that the fracture had propagated along a facet layer below a thin rain crust ~3+ feet below the surface. We did not see any recent avalanches looking over onto Relay Peak or on the obvious avalanche paths on Tamarack. Still, this spooky result reinforced our plan to stay away from cornices and wind-loaded avalanche paths. We used lower-angle slopes throughout our tour. 

A large (small car-sized) cornice piece dropped onto a test slope triggered a long shooting crack and remotely triggered two more cornice failures on adjacent test slopes.