Slabs and sluffs

With today's first avalanche problem as loose wet avalanche, we chose to investigate solar aspects at mid and upper elevations in the southern Swan Range. Driving to Whitefish Mountain Resort this morning we noted our first wet loose slide on a road cut at 3800 feet. That same road cut had several more slides by the time we left this afternoon. We choose to tour on Skook Ridge today since it would allow access to mid and upper elevations with solar input. Yesterday's new 4-6 inches of snow now sits under a rain crust that peters out at 6100 feet on all aspects. We observed skier triggered failures on this structure on a NE slope (see photo). By 1130 this morning snow was moistening on solar aspects, trees were dripping and snow bombs were falling. However, thrown snow balls did not starting accumulating snow until later in the afternoon. In some places the top 8 inches of snow was moistened by mid morning. On north aspects, snow remained dry below yesterday's rain crust. Ski cutting steep, shallow terrain this afternoon resulted in D1 sized slides 20 feet wide and 200 feet long. We dug a test pit on a NE slope at 6700 feet below the ridge line (see pit profile). Snow depth here (243 centimeters) was significantly more than at Big Mountain weather station. We had non-propagating results in this pit (ECTN 17). Farther up this ridge sits a large cornice, one section of which recently collapsed. Other sections of this cornice are sagging and appear to be near collapse. We stomped on wind loaded slopes near this cornice with no results.