Skied Skyland area over the weekend. On Friday, we dug a few NE facing pits ~6,900'. We got a buried layer of surface hoar ~50 cm deep to propogate with moderate and hard force in two separate pits ECTP18 and ECTP21. Basal facets seemed weaker too and also failed on hard force. We stuck to safe, sheltered tree skiing and did not tempt complex slopes steeper than ~32-34 degrees. On Saturday, the west winds were ferocius at the ridge tops and swirling every which way on sub ridges with estimated gusts reaching 50+ mph. We were still able to find sheltered snow on NE treed slopes. With good visibility today, we did not see any natural avalanche activity. This could have been due to 3-4" light snow overnight after the winds calmed down a bit. Exposed ridges and open slopes had evidence of cross loading. Wind hammered the entire Skyland area back to the highway. Total snowfall over the weekend was ~12".
