Echo Lake

We skied a loop from the Echo Lake SnoPark over Talking Mt. and back via Echo Lake.  Leaving the vehicles at about 8:30am temperatures were below freezing. South and east-facing snow surfaces had a breakable crust from previous warming, but shaded areas did not. Along the ridge we noticed 4-6mm surface hoar (and later saw 10mm surface hoar next to Echo Lake). Just east of Becker Peak, there is a spot that often forms cornices, but none were formed today (and there was no evidence of recent debris below), but in the bowl west of Becker and east of Talking, there were a couple of enormous cornices. We saw what appeared to be a previous wet loose slide on the eastern slope of Becker Peak as we skinned by on our way to Talking Mt. On our return skin on Echo Lake, there was what appeared to be a recent skier-triggered wind slab on the north face of Becker Peak.  We observed a few small previous wet loose slides on the south side of the Becker - Talking ridge. We descended the north facing trees of Talking and found cold quality snow. At the steep mid-slope zone, we did trigger loose dry slides that ran for about a hundred feet until the terrain became less steep. As we began our return skin on Echo Lake we noticed broken trees and branches sticking out of Echo Lake below the main slide path on Talking Mt. I couldn't see any evidence of a crown, so it is possible this was an avalanche that occurred during the early March storm cycle. Even with the debris mostly covered by snow, this was an impressive slide.