Winds and new snow in the Middle Fork

We toured in Cascadilla Creek today to look for developing wind slabs. Light snowfall at the start of the tour increased during the course of the day, at one point reaching 2 centimeters per hour. By noon the wind was increasing, with blowing snow at mid and upper elevations. Winds in the canyon were predominantly from the E-NE, while strong ridge gusts from the S were noted. We noted a 1 inch thick, pencil hard rain crust up to 4500 ft. Below this crust is a mix of fist hard graupel and soft snow. The rain crust gave way to a mix of soft snow and stiff wind board. In exposed N and NE locations, this wind board was up to 6 inches thick. Undercutting this layer resulted in cracking and easy failure. 45centimeters of fist hard graupel rests beneath the wind board. Winds at the ridge top (5700 ft) were strong and forming wind slabs on N and NE aspects. Stomping on small tests slopes caused fractures 4-8 inch deep (see video). Failure occurred on 1 finger hard old wind slab. We dug a small test pit in a wind drifted area just below the ridge line at 5700 feet. We had non-propagating results (ECTN7) 25 centimeters below the surface. We confirmed our ECT result with a CT test (CT11), sudden planar failure. Failure occurred on a fist hard graupel layer sandwiched between two 4 finger hard wind slab layers. We returned to the car at 2 pm to find 1 inch of new snow accumulation.