Stanley Headwall wind slab

Headed up to climb at the Suffer Machine complex; didn’t get up anything due to one size 1.5 slab avalanche and other sluffing over our planned route. On approach, noted a prominent, hard wind slab over top of a second, softer slab all resting on a decomposing, faceted mid pack. Crude compression tests showed the upper slab to be very touchy. On the ski out, noted a large amount of sluffing and wind transport all along the Headwall.

Observed one avalanche over the Suffer Machine ice around 10am; appeared to be storm slab and size 1.5. Sluffs continued all day over the climb and over the rest of the Headwall on the way out.

Through the day, sky was overcast with S-1 in the morning, increasing around 8am to S1 with brief periods of S2. Winds picked up around this point as well, from C to L-M SW down valley. Temperatures stayed steady around -5C. Total visible snow from the storm appeared to be about 5cm at tree line on descent.

Above tree line, snowpack was variable, from thin with cracking and a 2-5cm thickness wind slab at valley bottom up to approximately 120cm depth with a 1F to P hardness 15cm thick slab over a 4F hardness 10-25cm slab. Facets below. Conducted several crude compression tests, cutting the column with poles. Each yielded one CTE1-2 failure at the slab interface then another CTE3-4 failure below the second slab, both SD. On descent, a third column failed on CTE1 with a break about 40cm down.