Observation: La Sal Mountains

Along the edge of one of the main open shots in Corkscrew we dug a pit (see details below). At 38 cm depth we had an ECTP 23 Q2 with full failure at 30, which got our attention. So we decided to stick along the trees to climb and as a friend put the tip of his ski up on the edge of the pit there was a loud whoomph, and a crack propagated a good 30 feet out into the opening and another buddy and I in the trees could feel the vibrations clearly. That kept us out of everything not well anchored for the rest of the day. Be extremely careful as we also felt some smaller failures on the wind pillows on top of the ridge above Noriega's face. There are slabs wanting to come down the mountain right now, caution is key!!!!!

The snow profile interface wasn't working so here it is: 10,150 ft, 31 deg slope, NW aspect (328 deg) 11AM 25 deg F air temp 0-11cm, Fist, Facets, 27 degF 11-38 cm, 4F, Rounded, 38cm: ECTP 23 Q2, completely failed at 30, full propagation 38-61cm, 1F-4f, Rounded 61-155, 1F 155-160, depth hoar, but not really that much

Felt pretty stable in the forest, but anywhere the wind or open sky has been able to play with the snow, it gets weird. Once above 10,000' we got multiple whoomps on anything with wind structure or slab cohesion, and stayed on very conservative well anchored and sheltered slopes.