Stormy day in the Wheeler

A stormy and very cold day up Wheeler Ridge today. We found the same weak layers we've been seeing elsewhere - the Jan 5th surface hoar layer and the mid Dec facets/depth hoar in our snow pit (at 1900m on a south east facing slope). These two layers are getting pretty deep in the snowpack in some places now so we suspect the likelihood of triggering them may be getting lesser but the consequences are pretty high if they do fail. Triggering a layer this thick is likely to create a big avalanche! There was about 15+cm of new snow and some strong and gusty easterly winds blowing it around into fresh windslabs in open areas, likely building cornices as well. Temperatures also got down to a chilly -17.