Winds were transporting snow and forming stiff wind drifts on various terrain features both above and below treeline. Cornices were quite large on the ridgetops. We saw one small dry loose slough on a steep slope below a cornice on a north facing slope. Photos below of skier triggered wind-drifts that failed 1'-2' deep on a west(247°) facing slope at 9540'. These were on steep slopes and the weak layer was fist (F) hard decomposing fragments with a four-finger (4F) wind slab over the top. In order to get these to break you had to have a steep slope and jump right onto the steepest portion. Because of these results we did not tempt any steeper areas of wind-drifted snow that may have broken out above our tracks.

Photo of growing cornices on ridgelines.

The March 1st dust layer is easily recognizable roughly a foot down in snow tests with the March 2nd frontal passage graupel layer just above. This layering did not avalanche on our test slope nor did any tests produce any results on this layering. A 5cm layer of graupel is easily identified around 2' down and may be an unlikely player in "pooled" areas on slope angle transitions.