Scoured surfaces, hard wind slabs, and soft snow on Incline Lake Peak

On the sheltered lower elevations on Incline Lake Peak, 1-2 inches of soft snow existed above the old rain crust. Above 8500 ft. 3-4 inches of soft snow existed above this crust. The crust has started to erode and break down and in some places no longer supports a skier. A thin layer of weak facets still exists below the crust on the northerly aspects. Tests on this layer indicated that fractures still should not travel very far through this layer. See attached snowpit.

On the more exposed N-NE aspects areas of scoured surfaces and thin (1-5 inches thick) hard slabs existed. Some tests showed that fractures remain possible due to the failure of these slabs and other tests indicated stable results. None of the wind slabs extended farther than 5 ft down slope in this area on these aspects.

On the other side of the ridge on the SW aspects thicker hard wind slabs existed. These slabs were 2-3 ft at the deepest. They also did not extend very far away from the ridgeline. The largest wind slab observed today was on an above treeline SW aspect. It still only extended about 10 ft away from the ridgeline and was only about 15 ft. wide. Tests on this wind slab on the SW aspect indicated that fractures could propagate along the layer of softer snow resting on top of a crust at the base of the slab. Ski cuts and jumping on these wind slabs did not produce any signs of instability. Lat, Long coordinates match where the largest of the slabs on SW aspects was.