March 16, 2007, Crystal SlackCountry

Took the afternoon off and skinned up to Crown Point.
At Crown the SE face looked really tasty, so that is the direction we went.
We skied one at a time down and as we met at the bottom two of the three skiers reported whoomphing while they were waiting on the slope for each to decend.
Interesting, did not read  on the avy report that would indicate a weak layer that would compress. There we were at the bottom of a 38 degree South and SE face that join to a gully. We thought it best to dig a pit before we decide where to go next to verify what is going on around that area.

Temp upper 40's, light wind. Sunny, slope 35 degrees,  SE face pit dug 1.5 meter pit (152cm). Time 2:30PM
Snow structure throughout appeared on visual that the snow was granular rounder shapes the entire depth. Running a card through the layer found 2 crust layers. One at 25cm and another at approx. 76cm. The upper layer showed very little saturation or percoloation and it was cohesive. Shear test of upper layer discovered easy failure at 4 hard taps of the shovel. We were all surprised, so we tested several sections, only to have the same results. Still can't explain the Whoomphs-Hoar spacing in weak layers, consistant snow pack??
Discussed a story about similar conditions at exactly the same location in years past that slid to the nearly the ground. Discussed that the last time one of our party felt similar whoomphing he ended up getting buried.
We lamented the incredible corn conditions and decided to skin up a safe zone out of the exposure to the top of Crown. On the way up, out to the safe zone we felt a couple other minor whoomphs.
To many red flags-moved on to other gems.

Skied the SW faces off Crown with no unnusual snow or noises and went by Gold Hill and skinned up to East Peak. The snow was a variable on many aspects, but provided excellent and safe skiing off East Peak's SW slopes.

Make what you can out of the info, have fun and live to ski another day.
Joe


[Edited title - Charles]