Beaten by bushes: the woes of getting to upper elevations in the Flathead Range

Traveled on the low angled slopes on the north aspect of Snowshed in the Essex area to see if we could find some wet instabilities down low or some reactive wind slabs up high.

• There did not appear to be as widespread of an avalanche cycle during the recent storm cycle in that area. We found evidence of recent small wind slabs that released just below ridgelines on north aspects but we didn't see anything major. We did trigger some small, very shallow slabs on the thinner, weaker snowpack at the bottom of the middle elevation band (around 5200'). Some minor cracking around our skis in wind slabs near the summit ridge on north aspects and some test results in wind drifts near by showed the potential for failure and propagation. We avoided steep open slopes and didn't see any other direct signs of instability.
• The snowpack below 6000' is still about 1' to 8" deep, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't still harbor weak layers. There was still a reactive layer of faceted snow under a soft slab of newer snow and graupel all sitting on top of the November rain crust.  Between 6000' and 7000' we lost the crust layer and the snow pack was more uniform. There are definitely softer facets below the newer storm snow, down 1-1.5', but there is not a uniform slab sitting on top of them. This middle elevation band is more variable and we experienced few signs of instability. At upper elevations recent west and south winds have created firmer slabs on top of a weak layer of faceted snow. We saw them in favorable terrain below ridges and down wind of rollovers and trees. Drifts were not as deep as we expected. We found them up to 1-2' thick but mostly they were less than 1'. We measured the snowpack at upper elevations between 2 and 3.5'.
• South wind were still blowing moderate to strong at upper elevations and transporting snow off the peaks north and south of us.  We saw snow creeping across the surface on the summit ridge. Back down at the lower elevation band on our way out we found the snow getting moist even on our shaded north aspect. We triggered small rollerballs and point releases on steeper slopes below 5500' in the late afternoon.
• Coverage below 6000' is poor and we took a beating skinning and  booting through alder and devil's club going up and down.