Wind slab riding at Crown Mountain

Traveling was challenging today as we struggled to cross wind slabbed side-hill slopes. The distribution of this windslab, formed over the last few days by NW winds, is somewhat patchy and was anywhere from 5-20 cms deep, pencil resistance. We dug a pit at 1910 m in a sparsely treed area and observed a surface hoar layer overlaid by a 15 cm windslab. We had an easy result in our extended column test on this layer, however we felt that in places where the windslab wasn't present, the surface hoar was not likely a concern. The Jan 5 layer was hard to find in our pit and seemed to be bonding well within the well-consolidated mid pack. The Dec 15 and Nov 27 layers are down 110 cm and 120-130 cms respectively and are well preserved. Not likely to see these go away any time soon and be wary of shallow snowpack areas where they may be easier to trigger.