Thar North Couloir

We started up the Thar North Couloir but found ourselves forced onto a large and very stiff wind slab which was supportable even to booting. It spanned most of the width of the couloir and didn't seem like it would be feasible to ski around. We dug a quick pit and found a 15 cm P layer over older 1F wind deposit. An extended column test showed clear and sudden propagation on this layer on tap 22 (ECTP 22). The early February crust was probably about 150cm down in this heavily wind loaded location. It was too deep for our simple ECT but we didn't discern any weak snow above the crust and by feel of the fingers it felt well bonded. We turned around due to the size, hardness, and unavoidability of the newer wind slab, but the possibility of step down to the crust was also in the back of our minds, even though we didn't find anything concerning in that one location. Sorry no picture of the pit they are on a partner's phone. But I did get a pic from later in the day: there were small pockets of wind slab on the north slopes of Nak and we were able to produce shooting cracks with a small stomp.