Alpine Eights

Another beautiful day at Hankin with clear conditions. There was a cold, light NE breeze on the ridge but we didn’t see any snow being transported by wind today. We saw lots of previous wind affect and a few older wind slab avalanches up to size 2 but we suspect they are from more than 72hrs ago. We still think you could trigger wind slab avalanches in specific terrain features, such as steep wind-loaded features, corniced entrances, and thin rocky areas, so we skied an open slope and avoided these features today. Skiing quality was a little wind affected in the alpine but powder in the trees. At 1650m on a NE aspect aspect we found 25cm of wind slab overlying a stiff and well consolidated midpack. This slab failed during moderate hits on an Extended Column Test (ECT) but did not propagate. There was 200cm of snow and we also found wind loaded areas just nearby where there was more than 300cm.