Glacier Crest

Interesting day on Glacier Crest Moderate to heavy snow BTL. 40-45cm of HST. As we emerged into an alpine bench, we performed a couple of hand shear tests resulting in easy planar releases on the buried solar crust (45-50cm down) from the previous clear weather pattern. Soft slab properties were felt above 2100m close to ridgetop with local cracking around our skis. There was a clear wind lip formed by NE winds (reverse loading) across the entire "crest" as well as some wind loading (1m+) on the NW and W aspects. By noon, the sun had broken out for about an hour and baked the steep, W slope. On this specific aspect, the surface snow was wet down 30+cm and showing signs of moderate slab properties. We backed off and skied the NE pillows through heavy snow. Slow, powerful sluff on the descent.