Hellroaring might be overstating it

Afternoon tour to check on winds and their effects, if any, on the recent snow surface.

• Winds were light with a few moderate gusts, but that was enough for some light blowing snow and obvious signs the wind has affected the snow surface - dune-shaped drifts, scalloped and polished surfaces, fresh cornices.
• These effects were confined to the top ~150 feet of the peak, basically the most exposed terrain. Elsewhere the snow surface remained cohesionless powder. 
• Freshly-formed cornices were sensitive to a person's weight. The debris did not, however, trigger slabs on the short steep slopes below.
• One small slab of drifted snow failed below a cornice failed when stepped on, but did not move because of buttressing on the slope below. The weak layer was recent snow (dendrites).
• In a profile on a west-facing slope at 6250 feet, the holiday crusts were buried ~1.25 m below the surface; the slab above was right side up (harder near the crust than surface). Tests did not produce shears or collapses near the crusts or in the snow above, with one exception - a deep tap test which poduced a sudden planar failure just below the 12/31 crust. The failure layer shows a few rounding facets but no distinct persistent weak layer.