Quick report
Skinned to sheltered slope west of the water cistern above the lakes (4405'). Overcast skies with moderate wind and light snow with conditions deteriorating. Noted wind transport of snow but did not see any slabs down low, suspect wind slabs above around Austin Pass. Wind SW at point of observation. Many people continuing up towards Artist point. Dug a pit down 120 cm, base is not solidified but dense slush. Noticed obvious layers 5, 30, 55, 60 cm from surface. The 55 cm layer was about 4 cm thick and was constant melt forms or rain affected snow. The 60 cm layer consisted of several closely stacked layers of melt forms/dense powder with more consolidated snow underneath. We conducted a compression test followed by a deep tap test and noted the following: A surprise 15 cm layer CTM which fractured cleanly but not energenically (looked back at the pit surface and noticed a very thin layer of p/1F hardness in a fist hard layer), 30 cm CTH (2nd hard tap) 55 cm layer CTH (7th hard tap). We isolated the lower layers for deep tap and noted that some of the layers in the 60 cm interface failed during the hard hits (DTH) but did not fail energetically. Extending our leftover pit wall into a short extended column yielded no propagation, but the whole block did slide on the 55 cm interface with sufficient force applied to back of column. Travel was good/fun with fresh snow on top of a deep supportive layer. Several layers of differing strengths exist in the snow pack right now but we did not notice any propagation of fractures in wind sheltered areas. We avoided the ridge line due to visible wind transport.
Avalanche
Various small sloughs on Mt Herman above parking lot, one large brown frown (probably a crown not a glide) where the rock slabs above the lakes are.