Wind slab in VA lakes

It was a beautiful day in the Virginia lakes area today. Mostly clear skies with brisk temperatures and light to moderate southerly winds. I was aiming for Dunderberg and was hoping to get a feel for some more southerly aspects today; however the shift in the winds has removed much of the snow from the SE face, and I shifted towards South peak. 

There were signs of wind transport throughout my tour today, even in well-protected areas below the tree line. I found a max of 90 cm in snow depth today with the average being more in the 50-60 cm range. The low-density surface snow from a couple of days ago has been replaced with hard wind board and raised tracks in more exposed areas, and ribbons of grabby wind textured powder in sheltered trees and relatively protected catchment zones. 

I dug in at 10,650’ on a wind-loaded north facing aspect and found some concerning wind slab. See attached pit profile and video.

HS= 85 cm

Ski pen=0

Boot pen=~5~ (though a good kick through the supportive wind board and it was closer to 50cm)

I found about 25-30 cm pencil hard wind slab over fist hard faceted rounds. And my tests found this layer to be reactive to easy-moderate force. ~CT11-SP-Q1, ECTP7, ECTP11(x2)~ All tests failed just below the windslab, and all exhibited sudden plainer results. This got my hackles up a bit. I had a couple of other interesting takeaways from my pit today. One is the presence of faceted grains. The combination of a thin snowpack and cold air temperatures has resulted in a steep temperature gradient, which in turn is weakening snowpack. Second, my observations today found the rain/MF crust seems to be deteriorating quite a bit. I suspect the same temperature gradient is responsible for this development. While adding to the sensitivity of the wind slabs I observed today, I suspect the weakening of the surface snow may help the skiing conditions in the short term. But It will certainly be worth keeping an eye on what’s happening deeper in the snowpack if and when we start to see more precipitation.