Went up Broads Fork to Bonkers today, the price of admission is high with a lot of walking involved, there was a dusting of snow on dirt at the trail head increasing to 97cm at 9000ft where I dug my snow pit, that's the deepest snow pack I've seen anywhere this year surprisingly. There was no sign of anyone being on Bonkers in a while. My plan was to walk up the more SE facing of the slope until I hit the choke where it turns E-NE thinking the structure might be better, but I took a look at my compass and I was mostly on E facing. I stop climbing at the choke, I had already experienced cracking and collapsing on the way up and did not want to continue up any higher and get under the steeper more NE facing avalanche prone upper slopes. The snow pit I dug screamed poor snowpack structure loudly, it was NE facing at 9000ft there's about a foot of large grain facets with a decomposing crust about 2 inches thick, capped of with a fat slab that went from 1 finger up to fist in the new snow on top. When I went to cut out the back of the column it failed at the ground before I could isolate it, and it popped out with more energy than I've seen any pit produce this year. Not a good set up for any future load and a bit spooky. The upper slopes are still quite rocky and not skiable at this time, and when they do fill in watch out.

photos: cracking on the way up, snow pit, surface hoar down at the bottom of the slope, and a video of the weak layer at the ground. Oh yeah Merry Christmas and stay safe