Quick report
On Sunday, we toured up to 8500' on Little St. Joe and saw a couple small natural wind slab avalanches in steep features along the ridge and in the south bowl. We dug a pit on a wind loaded, E aspect at 8500' on the South Bowl of Little St. Joe to assess wind slab stability. In our pit, we observed a mostly right side up snowpack. However, our ECT failed in a thin (about 1 or 2 cm) weak layer about 55 cm below the surface. ECTN22 with partial propagation. While the ECT did not fully propagate, the combination of a planar fracture, identifiable weak layer and recent natural activity were enough to keep us out of avalanche terrain. We also observed a natural wet point release on a south facing slope at the base of some cliffs (see photo) around 8400'.
Avalanche
A couple natural wind slabs a few days old and some small wet point releases originating below S facing cliffs