Purple Peak

Snowpack was quiet underfoot, and we felt comfortable traveling in steep terrain where the snowpack was consistently deep.  The recent warmup has strengthened the upper snowpack on sunny aspects, reducing the chance of triggering an avalanche on those slopes once crusts stay frozen tomorrow.   Crusts are thickest, strongest, and most trustworthy near and below treeline on southerlies, and get thinner above treeline or on shoulder aspects.  There's been enough recent wind drifting that you might be able to trigger a thin wind slab in very steep, drifted terrain on shaded slopes ATL.    

Melt-freeze layers and columns extend 6" or so into the upper snowpack on S and SE aspects NTL, and above that, crusts are a couple of inches thick; semi-breaker to skis and punchy to boots.   We dug one pit on a low angle, wind-eroded slope facing northwest, targeting a potential shallow trigger spot.  The slab was about 75 cm thick, very hard (pencil to knife), above softer facets (4F or so).  We got ECTN results after removing a portion of the slab and giving additional loading steps.