Windy on Mt. Judah

Strong southwest winds were blowing snow and reloading any open N-NE-E aspects on Wildflower Ridge and Mt. Judah this afternoon. As we skinned by Wildflower Ridge, we could see large new cornices and firm slabs of wind drifted snow. We also noticed an older avalanche (likely from yesterday) that was almost filled all the way back in with wind loading from today (details here). We found a smaller test slope on the edge of Wildflower Ridge but our ski kicks and cuts did not produce additional signs of instability. 

We moved back into the sheltered area between Donner and Judah and could feel the Jan 4 rain crust and the softer snow below it with our pole probes. The crust was highly variable. In some places, it was thick and supportable and in others, it was thin and easy to poke through. We did dig a pit to get a more detailed picture of the snow stratigraphy. Our snowpit showed a density change in the most recent snow above the Jan 4 rain crust. One test yielded an unstable result on this density change but others did not (see pit below). We also did a loaded PST test targetting the soft snow below the Jan 4 crust but it did not indicate a looming instability.

On the summit of Judah, the wind was howling. We could see new cornices forming and snow blowing over the ridge. We also saw another recent wind slab avalanche similar to the one we saw at the lower elevation Wildflower Ridge (details here) that was refilling with snow.