Small Wind Slabs, Big Windchill

We went looking for wind slabs on the Switchback Trail up to the ridge above Noisy Basin. We found some small ones, and some big time windchill.

• Moderate to strong winds channeled by the local terrain were blowing snow and building soft wind slabs on leeward terrain. The loading pattern was hard to nail down because of eddying and erratic wind behavior. Prevailing winds were NE.
• New slabs were 1-12" thick and sat atop low density snow on NW and W aspects, and on top of a sun crust on SW aspects. Slabs were thicker and more reactive as we went up in elevation. We go frequent localized cracking at kick turns above ~5500' and some shooting cracks and slab blocks breaking under us on small leeward rollovers above ~6000'.
• Visibility was poor, so was the skiing. Windchill was frigid. We skied low angled, simple terrain to avoid having any kind of mishaps that would require spending more time in the wind and cold.
• We did not venture above 6400'.