Flathead Pass

This morning we toured south of Flathead Pass to check out the conditions. We noticed on our way up that the freezing line was ~7500 ft. The punchy and wet surface crust became quite supportive and icy at this altitude. We dug a pit at ~7900ft on a NE aspect. At this location, the overnight snow totaled only 2cm but we observed more significant wind deposition in and around the trees of about 10cm. Our shovel shear tests resulted in an easy shear at 120cm and hard shear (Q1) at 90cm. We saw no results from the ECT but, upon shearing the ECT block, we were able to pop off the block at 90cm with a surprising amount of energy (see photo). This block was quite consolidated, so much so that it remained intact as we pushed it out of the pit. With this observation, we stayed off steeper terrain today and will be looking for increased instability at this interface as temperatures warm.