Buck Ridge

Today, we rode on Buck Ridge and rode into First and Second Yellow Mule. It was snowing while we were out (S1 to S-1) and there was about 3 to 4 inches of new snow from today. The visibility was limited. In certain wind exposed areas near ridge lines, winds were blowing strongly from the south/southwest. temperatures where above freezing at the parking lot.

We observed a wind slab that released a few days ago. Other than that we didn't see any signs of instability such as cracking or collapsing. 
All our snowpits showed a very prominent surface hoar layer about a foot down from the surface. One of our tests resulted in propagation on the surface hoar (ECTP11). In our other two pits we got no propagation on this layer but a fracture was initiated (ECTN12, ECTN14).