Black tusk facets

Taylor meadows has surface hoar 10-30mm. No crust earlier in the day. South facing slopes under black tusk warming rapidly in the sun, some pinwheeling. Refreezing as sections of slope went into the shade, will be crusty tomorrow. Interesting stability tests - see snowpack. Switchbacks are skiable to the parking lot.

Dug a quick pit on south facing slope at 1750m, sheltered treeline area, to see if we could find the facet/crust combo and assess storm snow bonding. Crust is around 50 down with facets on top and under, and is breaking down. HS 110cm. First column test gave no results within the storm snow, but an easy or moderate planar result on facets above crust (didn’t see it fail as was expecting the storm snow to fail first). Second column test gave easy sudden planar. Third failed on facets above crust whilst isolating the block. Dug again on same slope at 1900m. Here crust was 80cm down. Unable to replicate results: column test gave several easy and moderate results within the top 40cm of storm snow, breaks and resistant planar, but nothing on the crust. Deep tap gave a moderate result on facets beneath the top crust (2mm thickness and breaking down). Did not appear to be faceted above the crust, though I didn’t have a loupe with me to check. ECTN on the several storm snow layers. The heaviest member of our group got several whumpfs on the same slope between the two pits. Snow above 1900m was wind affected and we didn’t go any higher. Skied mellow slopes down, snow was becoming heavier with sun affect.