Early morning winds out of the north were moving quite a bit of snow along the 10,000 ft ridges. Winds mellowed out after a few hours, but there was still a small amount of blowing snow around 12pm when we left. Wind ripples and cross loading were obvious in Cardiac Bowl, Hansen’s and LSB. Cardiac ridge run didn’t look like it was getting hit by the wind. We did not observe any signs of recent avalanches. We did not experience any cracking or collapsing in the areas we traveled.

We dug two snow pits on east facing aspects at 9,800ft that were below Cardiac Ridge Run proper. There are two very distinct weak layers that are particularly faceted. Both of those layers are less than one meter below the surface and have a 1F slabs above them. The result of the extended column tests in both pits was ECTX. About 20ft away from one of our pits we were surprised to find a very thin spot that was completely faceted top to bottom.

It was a tough choice for us, but we decided the snowpack structure was just too poor to ski Cardiac Ridge Run. In my mind there is still a real possibility of hitting a thin spot that causes one of the two weak layers to collapse.