Skis Up High, Ice Skates Down Low

Traveled to the Mt. Brown Lookout to assess the Wind Slab and Persistent Slab distribution and sensitivity at mid and upper elevations. Intended to look at the recent avalanche cycle, but visibility didn't allow for that.

• We stomped on many test slopes on both westerly and easterly aspects near and above treeline and got small shooting cracks and localized cracking.  On westerly aspects the drifts were a little deeper, about a foot. On easterly aspects wind slabs were shallower, about 4", and softer. However, wind slabs on easterly aspects were a little more reactive and a little more widespread than on westerlies. We avoided bigger, wind exposed terrain where the slabs may have been bigger.
• We didn't get any shooting cracks or whumpfing from the persistent slab problem, so we went digging to get more information. We dug 4 test profiles on a variety of aspects. We got propagating results on southwest, south, and east-southeast aspects between 5600' and 6600'. These results were on a layer of facets buried between 1.5' and 2.5' deep. We got no notable results at 7100' on a northwest aspect that had been previously crossloaded. Our results clued us in to the fact that persistent slabs may still be a problem, especially at middle elevations, and on our descent we avoided convexities and shallower trigger points. We rode planar, supported and anchored slopes over 35 degrees with only small sluffs to deal with.
• Winds were light out of the southwest at ridgelines, but we didn't see much blowing snow. Very light snowfall all day with 1-2" of new low density snow. Visibility was poor at middle and upper elevations. We used our skin tracks as a handrail to avoid having to navigate in the fog, and we rode down the skin track when the snow got too thin at lower elevations.
• There was a thin, but notable crust above the 12/28 storm snow at lower elevations and the trail down low made me wish I had ice skates instead of skis, or at least crampons.