I headed up to Hoyt Peak today. Up high there was about a 1 and a half feet of new snow on top of the soft snow from last week. Uncharacteristic of the area was the lack of wind. There are no cornices off the peak and no signs of wind loading anywhere I could see. I dug a pit on the west flank of the peak prior to any skiing. Please see the picture below. Nothing special to note other than a melt-freeze or rain crust that was knife hard just above pencil hard rounds at the base. My stability tests revealed what we've all been seeing. Failure in the large grain basal facets just above the ground. I was able to sluff out the main line but that is very typical as the center line exceeds 55 degrees in a few places. On my last run I ski cut the east flank with the assumption it would run. Upon turning turning down slope it failed. I quick look over my shoulder I saw it running and had plenty of speed to to get to my safe zone. I was a little surprised how the once cold smoke had setup so quickly. Within a minute it was wet, heavy and setting up.
