Sub-par test scores in Big Creek
I toured Big Creek today in the southern Paradise Valley, taking Donahue Creek trail up off of Big Creek to ski the low angle meadows above. The west face of the first meadow was fairly wind loaded and approximately 80cm deep.
The snowpack appeared to be approximately 20cm of soft powder over 30cm of a wind slab, all sitting on top of another 30cm of fairly loose, course, facets.
I conducted a compression test, and had a failure at 17 taps where the wind slab collapsed on the loose snow below. I did an extended column next, and recorded a score of ECT16P, with the failure propagating below the top layer of powder within the slab on the facets.
Prior to filling in the pits, I jumped on my skis approximately 4 feet upslope of them, and the second jump caused the snowpack on the back of the pit to collapse when the slab slid.