Wheaton wallowing

It's pretty snowy in the Wheaton but extended cold temps have made the snowpack quite unsupportive unless you are travelling on buried wind affected surfaces or old avalanche debris. We skied a steep avalanche path that was previously filled with debris. This gully feature also contained wind slab on the cross loaded side walls. This slab was producing shooting cracks but seemed to have little ability to propagate through its very faceted (rotten, sugary) structure. We did observe a crown in the upper reaches of the alpine bowl we were skinning up. The crown was about 30cm high and in the immediate lee of a north facing slope. Travel on sleds to our touring area was difficult as the machines were bottoming out on the ground.