From obs: "Yesterday my partner and I attempted to ski the notch couloir off Koch Peak in the Hilgards. There was a strong western wind that picked up throughout the day, but we didn't notice any recent avalanche activity from the new snow. The snow seemed very consolidated underneath the new 6" or so that had fallen, but once we started skinning up the apron we noticed significant and variable wind-loading, so we dug a pit. Our pit was at the base of the couloir at approximately 10,400 and was directly east-facing. Here is a summary of our pit results: 25cm of large sugary facets at the ground (fist), 5cm ice crust on top of these facets (pencil), a 30cm very consolidated and well bonded layer (1 finger), a 1-2 cm light surface hoar layer, and a 5cm wind-crust ontop of that. We were worried about the deeper, consolidated layer that was sitting on top of the sugary facets propagating so we performed an ECT test and it failed on ETCP-17 on that layer with a Q3 sheer." Photo: L. Ippolito