Bouncy pow

Our party toured to 7200' in the Flathead Range. We kept our plan simple, avoid steeper avalanche terrain and steer clear of overhead hazards

• In valley locations, wet, heavy snowfall persisted until the cold front arrived (overnight)
• Intense snow bands moved through the area in pulses during the AM hours
• Snow totals ranged from 6"-16" (4000'-7200')
• At 6000', recent snow (12") was capping a moist, 4f hard, saturated crust from Mondays warm up
• We observed our first (and only) natual avalanche around 6400' on a N aspect 
  • D2, windslab avalanche with a crown of 12"-16" (approximately 200' wide) 
  • This likely failed on a buried layer of graupel (which was the culprit behind shooting cracks along ridgeline, and sluffing below 5000'
• I dug a quick pit on a SE aspect (6400') and had prapogating failures on two graupel layers (one 4" down) (one 12" down) under easy force within the recent snow
• Despite localized cracking along ridgeline, we did not experience any collapses or whumpfs deep in the snowpack
• We bounced our way down a ridge feature with undulating slope angles of 25*-35*+ degrees with no signs on instability (below 5000' the skiing was heavy and manky)