We had a fun, but short day in the mountains today. We spent a few hours in upper Franklin Basin on the Idaho side of the line. Winds were raging today, and visibility was horrible. We had plans to hit a low angle go to, that includes a nice open bowl. That was a bad idea. We had to bail out of that one before we were half way up the climb because we had no idea where we were. Visibility was about the end of your nose. We tried another low angle go to that has a few more trees and laughed the whole way up it because we weren't sure where the crap we were. Ultimately, we ended up riding a few mellow trees and came home early.

Eric and I both dug test pits about the same elevation and at different aspects. Both pits were around 8800' in elevation. My pit was facing East-southeast and on a mellow 27 degree slope. Total snow depth was just shy of 4 feet. My two compression tests yielded failures at 2 taps and 1 tap (from the wrist) and failed on the new/old snow interface where I found buried surface hoar (about 12" down). The second half of the test saw failures at 28 taps and 27 taps (from the shoulder). This failure was near the bottom of the snowpack (about 14" from the ground) and sheared clean. I also conducted an extended column test. One tap from the wrist and the top 12" popped out. ECTP1 with a Q1 shear. Yikes!

Eric's pit was on a North East facing slope also at about 8800' in elevation. He found about 65" of total snow on the ground and conducted his test on a 26 degree slope. Compression tests failed at CT3 and CT4 on the top 10". And he also had failures in the same columns at CT 16 and CT 20 right at the ground. He also conducted an extended column test and had a failure at ECTP6 (failing at the new/old snow interface about 10-12" down". We were glad we chose mellow lines today, even if it was the gnarly weather that mandated it.