We dug on a NW aspect at 10,150'. The snow pack here was pretty shallow, HS 75 cm. Just looking at the pit wall there was an obvious weak interface 33cm below the surface. These are near surface facets that were buried by the 12/25 storm, and again by the 12/27 storm. The facets are 1.5 mm in size. This layer was reactive to stability testing today. We got CT19 SC and CT21 SC. We also got ECTN24. The snow above this weak layer was fist and four finger. Even though we got sudden collapse failures in our CT's, the three of us agreed the overlying slab was not cohesive enough to propagate a fracture on this buried weak layer. With that in mind, and no other red flags observed, we continued on our planned route. We enjoyed good skiing on NW facing slopes and skied slope angles in the mid to upper 30's. This layer should be of concern, especially if you find yourself in a wind loaded zone where you could have a more cohesive slab on top of this weak layer. I can't say if this structure exists at upper elevations, as we dug in the mid elevations today. Travis said this interface was not as obvious on a N facing slope he dug on last Thursday or maybe Friday.
