Observations from Incline Lake Peak

On and off snow flurries throughout the day with light to moderate SW winds.  Ski pen was 15cm deep with generally dense recent storm snow below that which was ski supportable.  We observed natural cornice failures along with a small natural wind slab avalanche that occurred along the ridgeline.  We dug snowpits in 3 different locations and elevations to look for the buried surface hoar and see if it is still reactive.  All locations were in large open but below treeline terrain.  At our first 2 locations we did not find the buried surface hoar.  At our 3rd location we did (N39.300998 W-119.942568), at just over 9000' on a N aspect.  HS at this location was 350cm with the buried surface hoar down 140cm from the surface.  CT's and ECT's showed no results on the buried surface hoar but did show some storm snow weakness below the large storm density change.  2 DTM's were recorded with sudden planar results on the buried surface hoar.  Targeting this layer further, we did some non standard snowpack tests to see if we could get this layer to propagate.  We got an ECTX while leaving 55cm of snow on top of the buried surface layer.  We did a XPST 42/90 END, this was also with the 55cm on top of the weak layer.  

It felt like the humidity increased in the afternoon, it wasn't quite misting but close.