Andesite Peak

Today brought another day of east winds and blowing snow on Andesite Peak. We encountered wind-affected snow in all but a few of the places we traveled today. Open slopes that faced E or NE had raised tracks, sastrugi, and exposed rain crusts on them. Shockingly, a few spots of softer snow remained on some of these slopes for today's east winds to move. 

The winds got stronger, and their effects more pronounced as we moved higher on Andesite Ridge. The winds had scoured away most of the soft snow along the ridge itself. The strong E-NE winds had deposited firm wind-blown snow onto the W side of the ridge over the last few days. These hard wind slabs rest on crusts with softer snow below. We tried kicking and ski-cutting several wind-loaded test slopes. Our efforts did not trigger any cracking or other signs of instability. The wind slabs also did not seem to increase in size very much despite the blowing snow.