Cold weather enough to snap boots ??

It was a balmy -27 when we set off from our vehicle to tour up Rolston this morning. It warmed up to -17 by the afternoon and the weather was calm and sunny. The zone appeared to be more wind affected down low than at treeline where the trees still had lots of snow left on them. There was 10cm of fluffy powder over firm older snow in the open trees. In some sheltered areas we found a layer of surface hoar under that powder. When we reached the treeline we heard several loud whumpfs so we dug down to check out the snow layers. We found a scary, well preserved layer of large surface hoar down 65cm between two very stiff layers. Based on the whumpfs we experienced, this layer has potential to propagate over large distances and create a big and deep avalanche. This layer only exists in isolated areas, but we feel it can be quite dangerous in these spots. We took a conservative but fun ski line back down. Near the powerline an alder snatched both my skis resulting in a somersault that broke two ski boots at the same time! It is too cold for carbon fibre boots out there right now.