Point 6

Ongoing moderate west winds continued loading leeward aspects along the upper elevation ridgeline today. Wind slabs felt stubborn, but I could easily get cracking in small wind lips and drifts. 

The persistent slab remains status quo as a low likelihood but high consequence problem. I did not observe any cracking/collapsing related to the persistent slab problem, but I did find poor structure and propagation in a snowpit. You would probably need to hit the right trigger spot, like a shallow or rocky area, and if you did, the resulting avalanche could be very large. 

I dug a snowpit on an east aspect at 7600 ft. I dug in a relatively shallow spot that had a depth of 119cm. The snowpack had a poor structure with weak, sugary, fist hard 2mm facets buried by a 70 cm thick slab. The first extended column test seemed to have a weaker slab and did not propagate (ECTN26 on the facets). The next one seemed to have a slightly stiffer slab and did propagate (ECTP26). I also observed non propagating results 30 cm deep at the bottom of the recent snow layer, where there was a very thin crust above a thin layer of graupel.