Quick report
Skied from lost trail ski area to the summit of saddle mountain, and back by the yurt. On the small peak between LT and Saddle mountain there was significant windloading on NNE slopes, but still grass sticking out on the windward side. i was able to trigger the cornice standing 1.5 meters back from the edge, and it then propagated 25m across the slope 10-30cm deep. Other parts of the ridge had shooting cracks but no cornice failure. Skied down the north side where it was not corniced, ski cut produced no results. Dug a pit on my way back up, ESE, 7800' 30 degress, HS 60cm. 10cm of new snow, F- 1-3cm pencil hardness crust at 45cm 45cm layer of facets, 4f hardness, but with some weird ice masses mixed in. Maybe percolation columns? Some areas seemed to have another crust in the facets, around 30cm, but i could also find small pieces of it. Dug another pit below the road, across the bowl from the yurt. SW, 7700 feet. HS 45cm 15 cm new snow, F- Facets from 13cm to 30cm, 1cm 1F crust at 12cm facets from ground to 12cm The interesting thing here was there was no crust on top of the facets, skis were penetrating through the new snow into the facets, which made for really good skiing. 100 feet higher on the same slope there was a pencil hardness crust under the new snow. Most North and W facing slopes did not seem to have the crust, new snow seemed to be bonding to the facets and the skiing was good. But on other aspects i could not figure out the pattern of where the crust was.