Becker Peak

I toured up to Becker Peak today. When I arrived,  snow was lightly falling, but only continued for a short period of time. Skies opened up and no precipitation occurred through most of my tour. In total there was only a few inches of accumulation in this area overall.  Surface snow on all aspects was wet and cohesive and compressible within the hand. Hiking up the ridgeline, I encountered several windrift features that produced cracking and easily released entrenching the wet cohesive snow below it sliding on the rain crust below. The deepest wind drift I found was around 2 feet. At the summit, I could see recent wet loose debris piles from cornice falls on the east face of Ralston peak.  I dug a pit profile on a north aspect at 8100', the January 31 facets were loose, but wet and compressible. My shovel tilt provided no results within the top foot of the snowpack. My extended column test produced ECTN results, however, continuing on with greater pressure tap 31 had clear propagation above one of the crust at 50 cm down,  There was loose weak facets above this crust. Wind was transporting and blowing snow from the southwest all day depositing snow on opposing aspects. Skies remained broken until  1 o'clock when intermittent snow squalls occurred not really producing much accumulation.