A big day out to Kings! Final some great weather and snow! Travel was slow but well worth it.
There was snow at the trailhead (~350m), started skinning at about 850m. The gully right before the meadow was a boot pack for much due to the steep terrain and soft snow sluffing down to a hard crust.
We dug a pit at the base of the main gully (no sun ow wind effect, maybe wind loading, 1200m, slope angle ~35°). Top 20cm is soft to a fist, then the next 60cm is soft to 4-fingers, then the older snow is all consolidated (we stopped digging about 30cm into the crust), hard to a finger/knife.
With a column test, there was a small pop between the lightest snow and the next layer with 4, hits bending at the elbow. Then a pop between the new snow and the crust with 4 hits bending at the shoulder. Overall we saw the snow compress, no failure, giving us the confidence to continue.
The party ahead of us reached a point where there was visible wind effect (1370m). From our understanding, they did a quick column test with gloves that propagated to a 3-4m crown, 20cm deep. That became all of our turn around points.
With some quick digging at the spot, there were numerous gaps just below the snow surface.
Very fun riding back down into the meadows with some fun and interesting survival skiing below that.