3/3/13 Tatoosh-Eagle Peak Area Rain Crust

Decided to check out the west slopes of Eagle Peak via the trail. Found a 6+ inch thick rain crust all the way to the top, although from about 4500 ft up there was some very dry freshies on top, about 2-4 inches. Dug a pit at 5000 ft on a 45 degree slope, found 5 seperate rain crusts in the 3 or so feet i dug down. These crust were separated with heavy, saturated and consolidated snow. Did a CT here, stable, fractured at CT18 at the base of the top rain crust, but no shear throughout the rest of the test. I did however, do a shovel shear, just to show my friend how to do one, sheared with Q1ish at about 2 feet down, due to a lubricated faceted layer. Although this layer was unreactive in my CT. Rode back down, the top 1000 was pretty good, the rest was rough as balls. Decided to stay the groove of the trail the rest of the way back to longmire from about 4000 down, it was like cross country skiing on a board, no slowing down, tree dodging, switchbacks, good stuff. Made the best of the !@#$ snow, good times  ;D