Quick observation from today. With so much terrain off the table due to extreme hazard and weather, we had to improvise. We went up to explore the low elevation, low angle shoulders on the east side of Little Mountain near Little Dell Reservoir. Winds were light or moderate and small form precip and graupel fell gently from the overcast sky throughout the morning. The top 30 cms of the snowpack was a dense windslab. The area was quiet and the oak brush ubiquitous. But the only other tracks were that of a moose, and to be honest the travel and skiing exceeded my expectations.

I dug a quick test pit on a NE facing aspect at 6700 ft just off our ascent ridge to see what we were skiing on top of. The HS on much of the ridge was 40 cms, as it was where I dug. I quickly got to the ground, and like many of my hand pits and pole pens from the morning, I found a 20 cm 4F wind slab sitting atop a melt freeze crust. But, on this NE bent, I also noticed a 5 cm layer of small 1 mm facets that were very weak between the new slab and the m/f base. The pit was essentially a low elevation, low snowpack representation of what we've been seeing elsewhere in the range. I got an ECTN4, and then the block pulled away easily and smoothly on the facets when I got the shovel behind it. See a photo below of the pit.

My takeaway from this is twofold: 1) the forecast of a full black rose on all aspects and elevations made sense from the conditions we found; if we had been on a steeper slope, we would have almost certainly made an avalanche and 2) as we get pushed into places we may not normally ski we need to continue to stay very alert, even if it seems like somewhere that "should" be safe.