Elephant's Hump

Went out to Elephant's Hump today and immediately could feel the upside down snow in the top couple feet of the snow pack. As we walked along the road and set in the skin track, cracks would appear below our feet as we punched through the denser layer near the surface. Boot pen was pass knee height and made for difficult walking without skis on. There was overcast skies with  sustained moderate snowfall throughout the afternoon. Winds were light with ocassional moderate gusts transporting snow in open areas and on ridgelines.  Within my pit profile, HS was 220cm at 8200' on a NE aspect. The denser 4F+ layer near the surface was about 20cms down and showed results in both CT and ECT. On the first ECT test there was clear propagation on this layer but the second ECT test showed no propagation. Below this layer was 40-50 cms of unconsoildated F-hard snow. Looking further down at the interface of the new snow/melt freeze crust from last week's warming event, the crust was weak and brittle but has larger weak clustered grains below it, this layer did not give me results during my ECT but I was still suspect of the large weak grains. I decided to perfom a PST and scored a 20/100arr. The column did collapse but only slid down ~3/4" and then rested.  On the descent we kept it very mellow and stayed in under 30 degree terrain.