Tragedy springs

We headed out to Tragedy Springs today.  While driving over Carson pass the windloading was already present as there were snow drifts on Southwest and West aspects along the highway.  We arrived around 0945 and the wind was now more intense on the west side of the crest. Snow was totally turbulent and airborne in all cases. Surrounding peaks were glazed with ice, covered with tree debris and sculpted wind features. Very large banners of snow were blowing off of Mokelumne Peak. The wind intensity at this point in the alpine terrain was causing sublimation more than depositing snow up high.  The traveling conditions for our snowmachines were completely variable with punchy conditions, supportable conditions, and powdery conditions. The best snow we found  was in below tree line terrain in protected areas away from the wind. Despite all the choas of the wind we did not produce or see any signs of cracking or slab development. 

I dug a pit in a protected N aspect @ 8400'. The top 100cm of the snowpack was mixed with facets, crusts and rounds. Shovel tilt pointed out a paper thin crust just below the most recent snow that was very stubborn to release but did show planar results. My compression test showed Q2 result on facets just below the thick Dec. 24th rain crust @ 40cm down. I completed an ECT and got ECTN result that maybe propagated through half the column, but was still resistant and not a clean break on the same layer. The facets  were dry and cold below this crust. Below that the snow was rightside up with 1F at the bottom of my pit.