Above Aspendell

Had a midday 2-hr window and wanted to see how much snow was up Bishop Creek

Dug a quick pit on a NE facing 25 degree slope above aspendell in that little granite mini bowl below north lake. 170 cm  deep; evidence of windloading, and east face of Bishop bowl had avalanches during the middle storms. Lowangle skinning was 6-8" powder on top of nice dense snow - no sounds- solid base no collapsing

Dug a pit in wind loaded gentle gully near top-

overall behavior was three layers - recent powder and windslab; middle dense sotrm layer on top of raincrust; basal layer of moist rounding former sugar crystals

surface to 15 cm was fist new powder (Thurs pm storm)

15 cm to 45 cm slab layer (probably round 3 three of recent storm cycle) 4 finger hard slab

45cm to 105 cm was dense farily homogenous 1 finger hard slab - didn't geek out with mini layers as its appeared to be a soild unit - well bounded to rain crust below

2cm hard rain crust above basal layer

from 110 to 170cm bwas large old sugar crystals that were beginning to round, had some moisture to them - 4 finger; base was rocks and dirt

No Isolate block in top 45 cm - no compression failures; sheer test required strong outward pull- just short of "prying" - clean block slid out (great igloo material); isolated from 45 to below rain crust- couldn't get anything to go with compression, sheer pr prying - bottom layed seems well bounded.

Did rutschblock test R4 failure - clean block at the 45 cm slab base- somewhat surprising first real jump and it slid right out - 25 degrees slope. So seems like that top slab is still bonding to middle storm layer; should have looked more closely at the interface but ran out of time;; jumped all over the middle layer R7 nothing.

Skied the short slope- no signs of instability.

Hope this helps a little - Also someone put a skin track up the standard moraine gully for Bishop bowl but I didn't see any ski tracks; people have also skied Habaggers today on the open west face and the north facing trees above; no one hit Table Mtn as far as I could tell