Noisy Basin

Went up to the Aeneas wind station to do some repairs. Turns out a heavily rimmed wind arm taking a 92 mph gust can, in fact, break.

• Isolated slabs of drifted snow just below ridge crests. We only stomped and ski cut a few of these with no result.
• 4 to 8 inches of recent snow. A thin freezing rain crust snuck in mid-storm.
• We dug hand pits at the middle and upper elevations on north aspects. We found facets near crusts in the upper foot in both hand pits. Currently, I don't think they pose much an issue due to the lack of snow above them. These will be weak layers to monitor as time goes on.

We experienced countless collapses at middle elevations. They quit right around 6500 feet. We presumed the collapses was a thin crust breaking vs. a weak layer actually collapsing. Regardless, localized audibles.

6800 Feet. N Aspect. 1 foot of new/recent snow above AR crust. We found a ~2cm layer of facets above the AR crust. There is a noticable hardness step between the slab and facets above the crust. The slab hardness was 4F+ and the layer of .5 mm facets was an easy 4F. Possibly softer, but the layer is thin. 

6300 Feet. N Aspect. 4 to 6 inches of new/recent snow above AR crust. Above the AR crust we found 2 additional thin cursts. At this elevation we found 2 to 3 mm facets. Some were striated.