The Electric Slide

Went to the heights of the Flathead Crest in a quest for the rare and elusive beast known as "good skiing". Contrary to popular beleif, its a fairly abundant commodity if you only reach high enough.

• At valley bottom, there's about ~2 inch layer of dry snow resting on top of the 1/13 layer (new snow/near surface facets/surface hoar). The cold nights seem to be eroding/weakening the 1/13 crust as it is not very robust at the lowest elevations.  It is crubly and breakable below 4200', except for in open areas where it seems to have been hardened by wind.
• Despite the forecast for sunshine not coming to fruition, We pressed on with our objective to climb a peak on the crest.
• We traveled uphill on SE, E, and NE facing. Between 5000-6400 and surface conditions are a bit inconsistent. Ribs, rollovers, and steeps have been sheared clean of any dry snow and are quite firm and slipperly as a result. In lower angle terrain that is more planar or protected from wind, the dry snow is windbuffed and friendly.
• We dug several hasty handpits during our climb. Above about 6400, the 1/13 crust becomes thin. Like in the depths of the valley, it was showing signs of cold air erosion (faceting) and it has become weak and breakable. We also noted that the dry snow above 6400 is bonding better to the 1/13 crust. We think this might be because the upper interface on this thinner crust is irregular and grainy (as oppose to planar and smooth)
• To access the crest, we skinned up a steep (35-40 degree) NE facing slope from 6700-7000 and did not find any locations where previous winds sheared off the dry snow.
• At about 7000' the 1/13 crust peters out.
• We skied down  NNE, E, SE, and SSE off the peak and found some fantastic skiing from 7800-6800. As we decended lower, you had to carefully link up deposits of windbuff. The sudden scapey pockets would sometimes catch you off guard and jolt you, resulting in an electic slide.

• Throughout our tour we observed numerous avlanches from the 1/13 cycle. Loose Wet (D1-D3) on both north and south facing chutes. Larger slides were on S facing. We also saw several slides up high that appear to have been wind slabs on N facing. These start zones/crowns were obscured by new snow/wind the past week, but the debris is still obvious.
• We also discovered a few new glide cracks to monitor (pictures attached).