Mt. Bell Couloir

Awesome conditions on Mt. Bell. Snowed on and off all day (0800 - 1600) but very few signs of instability (some sluffing off sun-exposed cliffs). In total we saw ~8 cm of fresh stellar flakes.

Dug a pit at the base of the Bell Couloir fan. There was an obvious crust formed by the recent melt/freeze cycle ~50 cm down. We performed an extended column test and while the layer failed after the 8th tap from the shoulder, it did not propagate across the column. All the snow below the 50 cm mark was dense and easily held our weight without failing. We continued up the couloir and saw no further signs of instability (other than some fresh snow sluffing off the cliffs/coming down with us on the steeper, 45 degree slope).