Silvern Sunny Day

Took advantage of the beautiful day to explore Silvern Lakes area. Lots of wind transport happening at ridgetop, creating a reactive pocket of windslab just below the ridgetop. We kicked off a a few of the soft & fresh cornices from the ridge which easily triggered the windslab below which was up to 20cm thick. Dug a pit just below ridge top at 1720m on an east aspect and found 10cm of recent snow overtop of the thin melt freeze crust. The snowpack transitioned to facets about 40cm down. Compression test produced easy results in the top 10cm on the melt freeze crust, and CT27 with a sudden collapse character on the facets layer (40cm down). A Propagation Saw Test on the facets layer had the fracture initiate 40cm into the test and propagate up across the entire column (100cm). We skied a long well supported east facing slope in the sun that was relatively sheltered from wind affect and was holding great snow.