backside washington

The plan was to ski some great fresh powder, but the day was cut short after a quick compression test and some less than favourable results.

I'm no expert, but this was the most reactive and unstable snowpack I've ever seen in a compression test. There were enough red flags to have me pack up and head home. The test was performed at the top of the Boomerang chair on Mt Washington in an open NE facing slope with low to no consequences. I got a clean planar fracture at 32cm depth after only 4 taps from the wrist, as well as a clean fracture at 57cm depth. Both layers broke and slid on a clean, smooth line as if it were spring loaded. I did not check the structure, but the weak layer was less than 10cm thick and within the top meter of the snowpack.