Quick report
Hiking up Valley Way, planning to hike to the hut and come back down, I found variable wind drifts started to become more obvious around 4000’, and at 4300’ they started to become more consolidated. I performed a hand sheer test at 4300’ and found a 50 cm block “cash register” upon isolation with an irregular break. It failed on top of a very granular weak layer at 25 cms, of what I’m assuming was facets from our cold January in the shallow snowpack. When picking up the block, the top 15 cms separated easily, with a planar fracture. I then hiked up to Star Lake, and where the north wind was transporting snow aggressively into my face, and also nearly filled in my snowshoe tracks by the hut in about 30 minutes.